Context: Earlier this month, OPPO announced a cellular standard-essential patent (SEP) license deal with Volkswagen Group for the latter’s connected vehicles (June 5, 2025 LinkedIn post by ip fray).
What’s new: The purpose of this short article is merely to address some misconceptions that arose after the announcement, particularly (but not only) on some Chinese websites.
The press release clearly stated that the scope of the agreement was “to license OPPO’s cellular standard-essential patents portfolio to [Volkswagen Group], including 5G [SEPs].” But the objective “to enhance user experiences for its connected vehicle offerings across its global product lineup” (emphasis added) and possibly other reasons led some to speculate that the agreement might cover more than the OPPO patents Volkswagen has already licensed as part of the Avanci one-stop solution.
Such speculation is baseless. Avanci guarantees to its licensees, such as Volkswagen, that they are licensed to all relevant SEPs held by each of its licensors, such as OPPO. The announcement does not talk about other patents, such as patents essential to non-cellular standards (WiFi, video codecs etc.) or non-SEPs (also called “implementation patents”) being part of the deal.
We reached out on June 11 to both OPPO and Volkswagen with a request to confirm this, not because we were in doubt but because we wanted to at least give them the chance to comment. OPPO declined, and Volkswagen did not respond (other than an automated acknowledgement of receipt).
We also asked Avanci about it, and were just pointed to the fact that Avanci’s licensing programs are optional. That is what we have observed, too. Not only do Avanci licensors sometimes license their SEPs to automakers that are not Avanci licensees or also to automotive suppliers, but in the case of OPPO and VW a deal has now been signed that involves patents already licensed by OPPO to VW through Avanci.
Avanci’s optional nature is the number one, two and three reason for which all attacks, whether by automotive supplier Continental or car makers like Daimler (which took the Avanci 5G license as an early adopter without any litigation) and Tesla, have failed miserably. There cannot be an antitrust or FRAND contract issue over Avanci’s pool rate as long as there is the option to take bilateral licenses from each Avanci licensor.
Other commentators have speculated that this might be a means of OPPO increasing its revenues over Avanci’s redistribution of license fees. We can’t see how that would work. Patent pools typically just reduce their license fee by the share that would be paid out to a licensor whose patents are covered by a bilateral deal. If OPPO charged Volkswagen more than the amount by which Volkswagen’s payments to Avanci are reduced, Volkswagen would increase its costs without getting anything on top.
The term of that license was not announced. It could be coextensive with the remainder of Volkswagen’s current Avanci license term; it could be shorter; or it could be longer-term. But it is a safe assumption that Volkswagen did not enter into an agreement that would raise costs over the course of several years for no gain. Therefore, the amount is either the same or it is lower.
That said, we agree with various Chinese commentators is that OPPO owns many 5G SEPs and that it is a very innovative company.
It is the first deal that was announced between an Avanci licensor and an Avanci licensee after both had already joined the program. There may be other such deals in place as license agreements are kept confidential most of the time.
OPPO was (and occasionally still is) rumored to have ambitions to enter the electric vehicle market. And it sold some 5G patents to Avanci licensee Toyota last year (July 29, 2024 ip fray article).