According to a material announcement submitted by MediaTek to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on 29 May, its patent management subsidiary, HFI Innovation, has acquired a portfolio of patent assets from LG Electronics for NT$1.6 billion (approximately US$50 million). The announcement stated that the purpose of the transaction was “for business operations”, but did not disclose the number of patents involved, the technical fields covered, or the specific composition of the portfolio.

HFI Innovation: A Key Platform for MediaTek’s Patent Strategy

Headquartered in Zhubei, Taiwan, HFI Innovation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MediaTek responsible for patent management and external enforcement. In recent years, the company has gradually become a key player in MediaTek’s participation in global patent competition.

In June 2025, HFI Innovation filed a patent infringement lawsuit against five European subsidiaries of Huawei at the Mannheim Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Europe, based on the LTE patent EP2689624 (relating to enhanced physical downlink control channel search space configuration technology). Subsequently, the dispute between the two parties rapidly expanded to multiple jurisdictions, including China, the UK, Germany and Brazil, and was finally settled in October 2025, though the specific terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.

LG continues to monetise its patent portfolio

LG Electronics officially exited the smartphone business in 2021, but having operated in the mobile communications sector for many years, it has accumulated a substantial portfolio of patents covering 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G and wireless connectivity technologies.

Although no longer competing in the mobile device market, LG has not slowed its pace of intellectual property operations in recent years. According to LG’s publicly disclosed data, as of the first half of 2025, the company held approximately 97,880 registered patents worldwide, with international standard-related patents accounting for roughly half of these. These cover multiple technical fields, including mobile communications, Wi-Fi, broadcasting, and audio-video coding and decoding. Since 2022, LG has formally incorporated patent and other intellectual property licensing activities into its articles of association and has continued to strengthen its commercialisation capabilities in this area.

In recent years, LG has successively entered into patent licensing agreements with a number of technology companies and has continued to conduct its communications standards patent licensing business. The sale of patent assets to HFI Innovation is also seen as a continuation of its intellectual property monetisation strategy.

To date, neither MediaTek nor LG has disclosed the specific number of patents or the technical fields involved in this transaction. South Korean media reports indicate that the subject of the transaction is the relevant patent assets held by LG, but likewise provide no further clarification as to whether these include standard-essential patents.