Panasonic Corporation announced that it has filed lawsuits against Xiaomi and OPPO in multiple jurisdictions over standard-essential patents (SEPs) in the field of cellular communication. The lawsuits are expected to take place simultaneously in Germany, the UK, the Unified Patent Court and China.

Panasonic said it decided to sue after years of bilateral negotiations with Xiaomi and OPPO failed to reach a solution.

According to the website of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), OPPO faces four patent infringement lawsuits, while Xiaomi faces three patent infringement lawsuits, involving a total of four patents, namely European patents EP 2568724, EP 3096315, EP 2207270 and EP 2584854.

Currently, domestic manufacturers have encountered patent disputes to varying degrees when going overseas, such as Nokia’s previous lawsuit against OPPO and vivo in Germany, which has not yet been resolved.

It is worth mentioning that in June this year, Xiaomi Group’s home appliance air conditioning department signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Panasonic Air Conditioner. The two sides will establish resource sharing in the research and development, production, manufacturing and other aspects of air conditioning products, forming a multi-level and multi-field strategic cooperation relationship. However, cooperation and competition still coexist.