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Ericsson begins legal action against Transsion over patent agreement delays

Ericsson begins legal action against Transsion over patent agreement delays

Ericsson has released a strongly worded announcement saying it has been “compelled to take legal action against Transsion”, a major Chinese technology company.

Ericsson explains that Transsion is a global company with a large footprint in Africa and Eastern Asia, but also operating in Europe and South America. It is also Ericsson’s last remaining unlicensed top ten smartphone supplier.

Despite almost a decade of negotiations, Ericsson says, Transsion continues to reject Ericsson’s fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) offers while failing to enter into a global patent license agreement.

What Ericsson describes as Transsion’s “perpetual delay tactics” have allegedly had unfortunate consequences, impacting the telecom innovation cycle, and creating an anticompetitive environment in relation to Transsion's competitors who properly license Ericsson’s patented standard essential technology.

The bottom line is that Ericsson has commenced legal action against Transsion in Brazil, India, Nigeria and the Unified Patent Court, a court comprising judges from all participating Member States of the European Union

As Ericsson points out, for several decades it has been a leading contributor to standards body 3GPP and to the development of global mobile standards. More importantly perhaps in this context, it cites the value of its patent portfolio of more than 60,000 granted patents, which, it says, is strengthened by the company’s leading position as a 5G vendor, and annual investments of around US$5 billion in research and development.

India’s Economic Times says that, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), a global market intelligence, data, and events provider, Transsion ranked fourth in the global smartphone market in Q3 2025, with shipments of 29.2 million units and a 9% volume share.

It also points out that Ericsson has recently signed patent licensing deals with China’s Oppo, renewed a long-term cellular deal with Huawei, and settled a dispute with Lenovo, the parent company of Motorola Mobility.



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