A Portuguese entrepreneur claims that Chinese tech giant Huawei stole his 360-degree smartphone-attachable camera invention after he pitched the patent-pending product to the company for licensing five years ago.
The 45-year-old entrepreneur from Porto said that during the past year, he had been negotiating with Huawei’s U.S. lawyers to resolve the dispute and believed that they were approaching a settlement—only to find that the company had sued him at a Texas court on March 25.
The lawsuit, filed by Huawei’s U.S. subsidiaries, Huawei Technologies USA Inc. and Huawei Device USA Inc., seeks a declaration that the companies didn’t infringe upon Oliveira’s patent.
Meeting
In an extensive interview with The Epoch Times, Oliveira explained how he visited the United States in 2014 to pitch his camera to various technology companies in hopes that they would license, manufacture, and sell his invention.With the help of a U.S. businessman who set up the meetings, Oliveira secured a meeting with Huawei on May 28, 2014. The two were invited to discuss the licensing opportunity at Huawei’s U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas.
Prior to the meeting, Oliveira entered into a non-disclosure agreement with one of Huawei’s representatives, a copy of which The Epoch Times has obtained.
Oliveira said he met with four representatives from the company’s business and sales divisions, and gave a presentation, which included the results of focus group tests that surveyed how people reacted to the product, priced at $99.95.
During the meeting, he also presented a 3D model of his invention and showed them the design drawings attached to his patent applications.
The entrepreneur said the Huawei representatives expressed interest and asked him to return the next day to give the same presentation to some technicians. This, Oliveira said, seemed to be a good sign, as most other companies he pitched to didn’t ask for a second meeting.
After the second meeting, Oliveira was told that the company would consider his offer and get back to him soon.
Dealings With Huawei
Oliveira didn’t think back to those meetings for three years, until one day, a friend who knew about his invention messaged him, telling him to check out a website link to Huawei’s new smartphone-attachable camera, the EnVizion 360 Camera.“I thought it was crazy. How could they dare to do something so ... similar?” Oliveira said.
The camera was sold at $99.95, the same price suggested during Oliveira’s presentation.
He immediately emailed the Huawei representatives he met with in 2014, as he had kept their business cards, alleging that Huawei’s EnVizion Camera violated his intellectual property. He was eventually referred to the company’s U.S. legal department.
Through his Portuguese lawyer, Oliveira said he started communicating with two of Huawei’s U.S. attorneys from about April 2018, after he sent a letter to Huawei charging that the company had infringed upon his patents and seeking compensation.
After a few months of back and forth communication, Huawei’s lawyers told him they couldn’t proceed with discussions until Oliveira hired a U.S. attorney.
So Oliveira and his wife decided to sell his house in Portugal to fund a U.S. lawyer. The couple sold the house in September 2018 and hired a Boston-based intellectual property attorney.
Oliveira says that he, his wife, and their 10-year-old daughter now rent a house in his hometown of Porto.
His U.S. lawyer resumed negotiations with Huawei’s attorneys, but during the next five months, Oliveira said, there was always something to delay the discussions, such as a missing signature or someone from Huawei would be away on a business trip.
Surprise Counterattack
In late March, however, the negotiations appeared to be making headway. Earlier, Oliveira had told Huawei’s lawyer that if they didn’t negotiate a settlement by April 1, he would start legal action against the company for patent infringement.According to Oliveira, on March 25, Huawei’s attorney asked him to offer an amount to settle the matter. Oliveira made an offer, and was told the next day that the attorney was going to inform Huawei superiors in China of the offer and get back to him.
Days passed without a reply from Huawei.
Now Oliveira knows why. That same day, the company had filed a lawsuit against him at the federal court in the eastern district of Texas, seeking a declaration that its EnVizion 360 Camera did not infringe upon his patents.
“I’m speechless. I didn’t know ... how low [they] could go,” he said.
Oliveira said he was completely blindsided by Huawei’s actions, as he was carrying out negotiations in good faith and expected the other party to act the same.
At no point during the negotiations did Huawei mention a lawsuit, he said.
In its court documents, Huawei acknowledged the meeting “on or about 28-29 May 2014” wherein Oliveira met with company representatives in Plano to “discuss his patents and business plan and offer a license to Huawei USA.”
The company later rejected Oliveira’s offer, court documents state.
Huawei USA’s affiliate in China, Huawei Device Co. Ltd., designed the EnVizion 360 Camera, the document said, adding that the product was first publicly announced in September 2017.
Huawei did not respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment.