Alan Fan, Vice President of Huawei and Head of its Intellectual Property Department, stated that artificial intelligence (AI) innovation requires a different approach to patent applications compared to 5G and other traditional telecommunications standards. The company is currently working to enhance its influence in the global intellectual property landscape.
During a media roundtable following the annual "Innovation and Intellectual Property Forum," Fan explained that Huawei's AI portfolio follows a "product-related patent logic" rather than a "standard-related patent logic," as "AI, unlike 5G, is not a standard specific to any particular industry."
"The purpose of filing AI patents is to protect the AI-related ecosystem and related algorithms, so that we can open these patents to all partners for use," he added. "The goal is absolutely not to charge others patent licensing fees."
On balancing intellectual property protection and openness, Fan argued that patents remain significant even in an open-source environment: "In an open-source environment, the code is open to everyone. The purpose of filing patents is to protect the entire open-source ecosystem, allowing only the code to be replicable."
He emphasized how Huawei's cloud services and AI platforms support emerging economies: "Developing countries do not have companies like NVIDIA or Google. Our technologies, such as our ecosystem, AI, and cloud computing technologies, can help these countries develop their own industries and enterprises."
Huawei Cloud, the global cloud service platform under Huawei, currently boasts over 8.5 million developers. It is regarded as a crucial force in driving local innovation, enabling partners to "leverage our development tools and open-source software to develop their own local applications."
It was revealed that in 2024, Huawei's patent licensing revenue reached approximately $630 million, with revenues from the Asia-Pacific, the United States, and Europe each accounting for about one-third of the total.