Uh-oh, it looks like T-Mobile USA and Huawei have recently gotten into a little spat that has resulted in the carrier suing the Chinese company. According to a report from The Seattle Times, T-Mobile alleges that Huawei has stolen the design and parts of a robot that the carrier has referred to as “Tappy”.
For those unfamiliar, Tappy is a robot that T-Mobile uses to stress test new phones to make sure that it is of decent quality. Of course not all phones are created equal, but there should be at least some minimum level of quality before it is sold to the public, right? That being said, T-Mobile alleges that Huawei employees, during 2012 and 2013, took photos of the robot as well as tried to steal one of the robot’s fingertips.
They also go on to add that after this discovery, the Huawei employees then reportedly tried to sneak back into the carrier’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. Because of Huawei’s alleged theft, T-Mobile claims that they had to spend millions of dollars switching to different phone suppliers, and how Huawei has used their technology to improve their own products, thus profiting in hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to a statement made by Huawei’s spokesman William Plummer, he acknowledges that the incident took place, but they were made by overzealous employees who have since been terminated. “There is some truth to the complaint in terms of two Huawei employees acting inappropriately in their zeal to better understand the customer’s quality testing requirements. As a result, those employees were terminated for violating our business conduct guidelines.”
Plummer adds, “As for the rest of the complaint, Huawei respects T-Mobile’s right to file suit and we will cooperate fully with any investigation or court proceeding to protect our rights and interests.”