Pirates on the Move

Since I have been so focused of late on Huawei’s conduct in the IEEE, I noticed two recent Huawei deals.  They have been treated as unrelated, but I wonder whether they are, in fact, part and parcel of Huawei’s SEP strategy.  Hence my title: pirates on the move. 

1. Nokia acquires Wi-Fi 7 related patents from Huawei. 

Buried in an announcement from Nokia that was posted on December 11, 2025 (New Wi-Fi licensing deals in automotive | Nokia) is this statement: “In addition to our own research and Wi-Fi standardization, we have also acquired a number of Wi-Fi 7 related patents from Huawei, further enhancing our assets.”  It always is interesting when two pirates appear to be working together.  But the timing of this deal vis-à-vis the Huawei IEEE scandal is even more interesting (see Open Letter to the IEEE About the Huawei Email; IEEE Sanctions - the Huawei Vote Stuffing Scandal Part 2 and The Huawei IEEE Scandal: Is Huawei a Buccaneer or a Privateer? for more about the scandal). 

The Huawei IEEE email went out to the reflector on or around November 10, 2025.  Nokia has at least ten voting members in the 802.11 working group.  Each of them would have received the Huawei email.  These same Nokia individuals also would have received the email to the reflector from the Senior Counsel of the IEEE Standards Association stating that there were “serious potential questions about the actions of Mr. Woodard, and possibly others, that may violate the rules of IEEE and its standards development process” (see [802-LMSC] Fwd: Communication Regarding A Recent Email to the 802.11 Ref).  In other words, the deal apparently happened even though Nokia knew that Huawei was under investigation for its behavior in the development of the very standard for which it purchased alleged SEPs from Huawei. 

Of course, Nokia is no stranger to bad behavior when it comes to standards and standard essential patents.  Nokia has been behaving badly in the IEEE for over a decade now. See, e.g., The ISO Holdouts: The "Nordic Companies" and Wi-Fi (Part 6 in Convergence and Competition – A Tale of Two Standards).  And, according to allegations made by Warner Brothers, Nokia has been engaging in an “unlawful monopolization scheme” for H.264 and H.265 video coding standards (sorry all, couldn’t find a non-paywalled source for this so see Warner Bros. Hits Nokia With Antitrust Claims In Patent Case - Law360). 

2. Sisvel launches a Wi-Fi 7 pool. 

Huawei is by many accounts the top holder of Wi-Fi 7 SEPs (see for example, Who is Ahead in the Wifi-7 Race? GreyB’s Wifi-7 Report - GreyB).  Nokia on the other hand does not make the top ten Wi-Fi 7 (or Wi-Fi 6 either) SEP holding list.  Nokia claims to be a “pioneer” and innovator (see Licensing opportunities for businesses I Nokia) but its failing Wi-Fi portfolio belies that claim, at least in the 802.11 space.  It makes sense that a company that makes so much of its money from licensing instead of from selling useful products would want to continue its monopoly by purchasing patents when its own innovation falters.  What, however, motivated Huawei, the number one Wi-Fi 7 SEP holder, to sell off a part of its portfolio to shore up the licensing capabilities of an unrelated company with faltering innovation in the Wi-Fi space?

Shortly after Nokia announced that it had acquired Wi-Fi 7 patents from Huawei, Sisvel announced the creation of its new Wi-Fi 7 patent pool.  “Building on the groundbreaking success of Sisvel’s Wi-Fi 6 patent pool, the programme makes it simple and straightforward to access Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) standard essential patents through a single agreement.” (Sisvel | Wi-Fi Multimode).  According to the announcement, Huawei is one of the founding members of the new Wi-Fi pool.  Nokia, however, is not listed. 

So, from Huawei’s perspective, the question becomes: was the purpose of the Nokia sale to split up the Huawei Wi-Fi portfolio in order to avoid making all of Huawei’s patents part of the pool?  By splitting its portfolio just before Sisvel announced its pool, was Huawei attempting to inflate the value of its portfolio?  Is this the classic case in which each patent owner will now argue that each piece of the portfolio somehow is worth more than Huawei could have obtained if it had kept the portfolio together? Or secretly just collect more money than they otherwise could have?

Perhaps someday, in some case or some investigation, evidence will be collected that answers these questions.  But wouldn’t the public good be better served if there was greater transparency right now, particularly given everything else going on?