On Sunday, LG Electronics (LG Electronics) said it had filed a patent infringement lawsuit against TCL in Germany on suspicion of infringing its intellectual property rights in mobile communications technology, according to foreign media reports. LG Electronics said it had filed a lawsuit against TCL in the local courts in Mannheim and Dusseldorf, Germany, on Nov. 6.

The company claims that TCL has used its three basic LTE standard patents on its functional phones and smartphones without its permission.

The company also said the lawsuit was caused by TCLundefineds refusal to accept the terms of its authorization negotiations. LG Electronics said it had started warning TCL as early as 2016 and had repeatedly requested to negotiate an authorization agreement with TCL, but all of them had been rejected by the latter.

The LG Electronics added that it decided to take legal action to protect its patented technology. The LTE technology is a 4G wireless communication standard, and LG Electronics has the necessary patents for the technology.

This is the third time that LG Electronics has taken legal action against smartphone manufacturers. Earlier, the company filed lawsuits against U.S. handset maker BLU Products and French smartphone maker Wiko in March 2017 and June 2018, respectively, on suspicion of infringing patents on their LTE technology.

Later, after LG Electronics reached an authorization agreement with BLU Products, the two companies ended the dispute. Earlier this year, LG Electronics also won its first lawsuit against Wiko in Germany.

LG Electronics has taken a tough line against companies that infringe on its patented technology. Last week, the company also filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Hisense (Hisense) in the United States. The company claims that Hisense used LG electronic display technology for most of the televisions it sells without permission.

TCL has seen rapid growth in global television and smartphone sales in recent years. IHS Market is the worldundefineds third-largest television maker in terms of shipments in the second quarter of this year. In addition, TCL sold more than 15 million phones worldwide last year, according to, Strategy Analytics.

At the same time, LG Electronics is a leader in 4G LTE and 5G patents. The company won the largest number of LTE and LTE-Advanced patents in the United States for five years in a row from 2012 to 2016, according to a patent consulting firm. In addition, as of July, the company had 11 percent patents for 5G network technology, a German research institute said.

In the area of 6G, the company has set up a 6G Research Center in Korea earlier this year, which was opened earlier this year.