Earlier today Patently Apple posted a report titled "Huawei's Brand was Smeared when the Company's New Year's Message was sent out Globally on Twitter via an iPhone." In an internal Huawei memo dated Jan. 3 seen by Reuters, corporate senior vice-president and director of the board Chen Lifang said, "The incident caused damage to the Huawei brand." What's just as damaging is that Huawei was found to have infringed the patents of MPEG LA in Germany which has led to their smartphones being ordered to be recalled and destroyed.

MPEG LA announced last week that patent holders in MPEG LA’s AVC/H.264 Patent Portfolio License have enforced verdicts of injunction in German District court (“Landgericht Dusseldorf”) cases finding that Huawei Deutschland GmbH (“Huawei”) and ZTE Deutschland GmbH ("ZTE") infringed patents by their use in mobile phones that implement the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) Standard.

In both cases the Germany's Court of Appeals has dismissed Huawei´s and ZTE´s requests for an immediate stay of the enforcement while the cases are under appeal.

As a result, Huawei and ZTE must cease and desist from offering in Germany AVC/H.264 compliant devices such as smartphones and tablets that use the enforced patents. In addition, all such products in their possession or the possession of third parties must be recalled and destroyed.

UPDATE: 19 February 2019 –   MPEG LA announced today that Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Huawei Device Co., Ltd and Huawei Device (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd (“Huawei”) have become Licensees to MPEG LA’s AVC Patent Portfolio License (“AVC License”). As a result of this agreement, all legal disputes related to patent enforcement actions brought by patent holders in MPEG LA’s AVC License against Huawei have been resolved.