(Yicai) Aug. 24 -- An executive at Zunpai Communication Technology Nanjing said that the Chinese chipmaker has not yet kicked off litigation negotiations with Huawei Technologies' chip firm HiSilicon Technology.

"Our side hasn't received any pleadings from HiSilicon," the executive told Yicai yesterday. "Based on what we learned, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court hasn't accepted HiSilicon's indictment yet."

HiSilicon has not released any statement about the matter yet.

On July 14, the Shanghai IP Court accepted HiSilicon's request to freeze CNY95 million (USD13.1 million) worth of assets of Zunpai ahead of a possible lawsuit.

What the dispute between HiSilicon and Zunpai is about remains unknown. But Yicai believes it may be about the design of chips based on the sixth-generation standard of Wi-Fi network, or Wi-Fi 6, as the two companies use very similar technologies.

Zunpai was established in March 2021 by founding members of HiSilicon, Qualcomm, Marvell, Unisoc, and other chipmakers. Since then, it raised over CNY300 million (USD41.2 million) from famous financial institutions and investors, including Xiaomi, Hushan Investment Management, Haiwang Capital, Gaorong Capital, and Jiakang.

On July 13, Huawei released royalty rates for its patents on Wi-Fi, smartphones, and the internet of things. The Shenzhen-based firm collects 50 US cents from each consumer device using its patents on Wi-Fi 6.

"Huawei earned around USD560 million from patent licensing last year, more than it spent on patent licensing for the second time ever, but its total expenditure is still three times what it earns from the sale of intellectual property rights," Shen Hongfei, vice president of Huawei's legal department, said at the Huawei 2023 Innovation and Intellectual Property Forum in Shenzhen on July 13.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione