Source:
https://scmp.com/article/412252/huawei-denies-copyright-allegations

Huawei denies copyright allegations

A hi-tech war of words flared again yesterday, when Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies filed a reply to a United States district court defending itself against copyright infringement allegations made by Cisco Systems.

'Cisco opened its reply brief with a bloated list of allegations, tailor-made for coverage by the press, that it claimed Huawei failed to deny,' Huawei's lawyer Robert Haslam wrote in response to Cisco's motion for preliminary injunctions.

'Cisco's motion seeks to prevent Huawei from selling its products in the US market and is no more than an attempt to stifle competition.'

Cisco, the world's No 1 computer networking manufacturer, told a Texas court last week that it had new evidence to show Huawei routers identified themselves to a network as being Cisco products by illegally copying Cisco's data link switching (DLSw) protocol source code.

Huawei argued that DLSw is a widely used industry standard. It used Cisco's identification number because 'during product testing, Huawei discovered that Cisco routers operated differently when they detected a Huawei router, resulting in degraded performance'.

'Huawei merely made the choice to optimise performance for its customers,' the Chinese company said, adding the assertions that it 'still uses Cisco code' were incorrect and misleading.

'Cisco wrongly asserts that [versatile routing platform] is available on Huawei's English-language Web site. But Cisco could not have downloaded the code from this Web site because access is limited by password to Huawei technical engineers.

'Huawei has expended substantial capital, time and energy in preparing new products with which to enter the US and world router markets, and it is eager to compete with Cisco in those markets.

'Cisco's rash allegations, made under cover of the litigation privilege, and its unsupported demand for an injunction that would impose a worldwide ban on any new Huawei router products, are impeding that competition,' the company said.

Cisco told the South China Morning Post that Huawei's explanation was pointless and vague. Cisco spokesman Terry Alberstein said Huawei's borrowing of Cisco's identification number implied it had deployed Cisco's proprietary technologies.

'Nothing Huawei said in the latest filing has changed the fact that a broad injunction is necessary and appropriate to prevent Huawei continuing to copy Cisco's intellectual property,' he said.

'Regarding whether they said they have ceased distributing the offending materials - and we can trust them to self-police - we would like to make sure they have ceased all misappropriation of our intellectual properties.'