No, Huawei and ZTE did not accuse Xiaomi of patent infringement

Earlier today, a story originating on the 21st Century Business Herald went viral on Chinese tech media, reporting that Huawei and ZTE sent letters to Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo accusing them of patent infringement.

Tech in Asia contacted Xiaomi and Oppo for a statement. Xiaomi says it never received such a letter. Additionally, Huawei’s head of intellectual property, Jason Ding, refuted the rumor on his Weibo account, confirming Huawei did not send the letter.

Oppo has not responded yet.

Last week, DigiTimes reported (paywall) western firms including Nokia, Microsoft, and Ericsson were preparing for legal action against Xiaomi, but that report was never confirmed, either.

21CBH reported that Xiaomi was accused of violating Huawei’s and ZTE’s patents on WCDMA technology. WCDMA is a standard of 3G used by the chips that connect smartphones to voice and data networks.

We’ll update this article if we learn more.

See: Xiaomi cuts deal with local Chinese chip-maker to beef up intellectual property: report