HP partners with U.S.-blacklisted Huawei for licensing the Chinese company’s WiFi tech

BEIJING — U.S.-based personal computing and printing firm HP has signed a multi-year global agreement for licensing certain WiFi patents from Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, the companies announced Wednesday.

It’s a sign of adoption of Huawei’s technology outside China, despite the U.S. blacklisting the company in 2019, a move that restricted it from working with American suppliers such as Google.

“This is a standard-essential patent license covering Wi‑Fi technology – something used broadly across the industry and routine for companies whose products connect to Wi‑Fi. It is not new, does not represent a broader strategic or commercial relationship, partnership, or collaboration with Huawei,” HP said.

The deal comes after a patent dispute involving HP, Huawei and other companies that resulted last fall in an agreement allowing the U.S. company to access a pool of 2,000 patents related to wireless network connectivity. Huawei was one of the founding members of the patent pool, called Sisvel WiFi 6.

The latest global cross-licensing agreement includes “valuable reciprocal patent rights from HP,” Steven Geiszler, who represented Huawei in the negotiations, said in a statement. Texas-based Geiszler was a senior in-house intellectual property lawyer for Huawei for nearly a decade, until he set up his own firm in April with Huawei as his main client.

HP is scheduled to release earnings Thursday morning Beijing time. HP was spun-off as a separate firm in 2015 after Hewlett-Packard Company was split into two units.