Lenovo announced this week that it intends to purchase a portofolio of patents from NEC, that includes over 3800 patent families filed in a variety of countries all over the world.
The portofolio covers essential standard patents for 3G and LTE technologies, plus patents that cover features and technologies for “advanced mobile products”. Those most likely include smartphones and tablets and Lenovo’s expansion follows a shopping spree that ended with Motorola’s acquisition. Lenovo claims it will continue to expand its intellectual property in two ways.
Number one is to innovate and use its engineering department and number 2 is from external sources, buying from others the needed patents. Lenovo is well into the post PC era and wants a bigger piece of the smartphone and tablet market, although their local rivals Huawei are actually evolving faster, at least in the handset biz.
