Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson has filed law suits against China's ZTE Corporation over alleged patent infringement in the UK, Italy and Germany.

Kasim Alfalahi, head of IPR Licensing at Ericsson, said that ZTE had violated several patents related to second- and third-generation wireless technologies (GSM and WCDMA).

ZTE intellectual property director Wang Haibo told China Business News that his company was "surprised" by Ericsson's legal action. ZTE holds a total of 33,000 patents, Wang said. "Even in the worst-case scenario, (the lawsuit) would not cause much negative effect on ZTE," he said.

The UK court summons refers to five ZTE GSM mobile phones, according to Zhang Jianguo, general manager of ZTE's GSM and UMTS products.

Ericsson is demanding compensation and is also seeking bans on the sales of a number of ZTE mobile phones in the UK, Italy and Germany as well as some network infrastructure products in Germany.

Alfalahi said Ericsson had been in negotiations with ZTE on a patent licensing agreement for at least four years. "We've tried every possible way to work out a deal with ZTE. But they declined to sign. We had no choice but to ask the court to protect our rights," he said.

ZTE's Wang said that four years may seem like a long time period to the general public, but patent licensing is a very complicated process that involves different definitions of patents in different countries.

"ZTE has been sincere during the patent negotiations and our senior executives have taken the initiative to arrange meetings with them," said Wang. "But Ericsson proposed some very harsh terms concerning cross-licensing and posed a huge challenge to ZTE," he said.

China's business press carried the story above on Thursday. China.org.cn has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.