For Violating Standard LTE Patents

LG Electronics has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against TCL of China in Germany.

LG Electronics filed a patent infringement lawsuit against TCL of China with the Mannheim District Court and the Dusseldorf District Court in Germany on Nov. 6.

The gist of the lawsuit is that some of the technologies applied to TCL’s feature phones and smartphones violated LTE standard patents held by LG Electronics.

The litigation involves three standard patents, all of which are technologies for smooth LTE telecommunications via mobile phones. Standard patents refer to essential technical patents that must be used to implement specific functions in related products.


LG Electronics issued its first warning to TCL in 2016 and has since requested licensing negotiations for several times, but TCL has not responded. LG Electronics filed the lawsuit to protect its intellectual property rights and strictly deal with competitors' illegal use of patents.

LG Electronics ranked first in the world in terms of 4G LTE patents from 2012 to 2016, according to Tech IPM, a U.S. patent agency. The company also accounts for 11 percent of the 5G standard patents.

Market research firm Strategic Analytics estimates that TCL sold more than 15 million units of mobile phones to the global market in 2018.

Earlier, LG Electronics filed a lawsuit against U.S. mobile phone manufacturer BLU in the U.S. in March 2017 for violating its LTE patents. It did the same for French mobile phone manufacturer Wiko in Germy in June 2018. The company signed a patent license agreement with BLU and won the first trial regarding all of the three disputed patents in the lawsuit against Wiko.

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