back to article Huawei spied, US federal jury finds

A jury has agreed that Huawei committed industrial espionage in United States, ordering the Chinese giant to pay $4.8m in damages. Three years ago, T-Mobile USA sued Huawei, claiming that the latter stole trade secrets about a phone-testing robot Big Magenta used, called Tappy, which mimics a human user to improve testing of …

  1. Androgynous Cow Herd

    Innovation...

    Have the Chinese invented anything since gunpowder and philosophy?

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Innovation...

      In short: yes (their bridge builders are pretty amazing, amongst other things)

      The USA was and is a hotbed of intellectual property theft, only turning to litigation against others when it suited them to do so (ask the Lumiere Brothers how much Edison stole from them, etc)

      You'll find similar robots sitting in the Underwriters' Laboratories where they've existed for many years. UL are pretty much the pioneers in robotising usage simulators, but many manufacturers have adopted the same technology to ensure they pass UL's torture tests. In this case it looks remarkably like not-very-modified SCARA pick'n'place robot.

    2. Ramazan
      WTF?

      Re: Have the Chinese invented anything since gunpowder and philosophy?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country#China

  2. Martin0641

    Well

    "good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

  3. scrubber
    Mushroom

    Solution

    Any company found to be violating user privacy or committing corporate espionage has all its patents invalidated and made open and free to use.

    1. Gordon 10

      Re: Solution

      Eh?

      Firstly why should we care whether 2 mega corps want to have a pissing match in public?

      Secondly regarding this story what's User privacy got to do with the price of fish? Relevant much?

      To me this stinks of good ole boy American protectionism disguised as a parent case.

      Don't forget that since one of the sides is an American Telecoms giant they need to be assumed as utter twunts until proven otherwise.

  4. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    Who remembers tamagotchi?

    A toy, an LCD electronic pet that you had to "feed" and play with to maintain its wellbeing.

    In case you didn't have the time, someone invented a machine that pressed the buttons for you.

    Many years before this Tappy, I think.

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "Huawei said it strongly defends the principle of intellectual property"

    But of course it does, as long as we're talking about it's intellectual property.

    Just like Hollywood is hell-bent on having its copyrights respected even though it built itself on stealing ideas when it started up, back in the days before the USA existed.

    Business as usual.

  6. DropBear

    How about a new plan: the very first thing that happens on a new patent suit is that a panel of no less than 15 individuals "skilled in the relevant art" get presented with the problem the patent allegedly solves and are asked (individually) to offer at least one solution concept. If at least one third of them comes up with substantially the same basic idea, the suit is immediately dismissed, the patent in question is invalidated, and the sued party gets to choose one patent from its adversary's portfolio that becomes public domain regardless of its own merit, as punishment. Yes, I know it's all about the details, but it still sound more fair...

  7. Bandikoto

    Sysco

    It's not as if their product had the exact same error messages, poor spelling and all.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Software Developer

    I worked at a media company. One of the guys testing the capacitive touch-screen for a device took a 3D printer, removed the nozzle, replaced with a silicone ball, and tada, automatic touch-screen testing. This was back in 2014, no one thought the idea was such a big deal. How else would you simulate a physical finger press? A robot-arm with a fake-finger is the obvious conclusion. I call BS, and this has almost zero bearing on the success of Huawei's products, or the eating into America's slice of the tech pie.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like