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New Delhi, April 29 (PTI): Chinese telecom equipment makers ZTE and Huawei are engaged in a patent violation brawl.

ZTE Corp today slapped a patent lawsuit against Huawei Technologies for alleged infringement of its 4G (fourth-generation) cellular technologies in China.

The lawsuit comes a day after Huawei sued ZTE in Germany, France and Hungary for violations of a series of patents. Both the Chinese companies have a strong presence in India.

Today’s salvo from ZTE is the latest in a series of high-profile patent infringement cases worldwide among leading technology players such as Apple, Samsung and Motorola.

ZTE has alleged that Huawei has infringed upon its 4G long term evolution (LTE) cellular wireless technologies in China.

ZTE said Huawei should stop the patent violations, pay compensation and bear the legal costs.

“There will also be a series of legal actions taken globally to protect ZTE’s rights on intellectual properties, ensuring its legitimate rights and interests will not be compromised,” the company stated.

On Thursday, Huawei had filed the lawsuits alleging that ZTE was infringing upon many of its patents related to data card and LTE technologies.

It had also accused of ZTE illegally using a Huawei-registered trademark on some of its data card products.

“Huawei was compelled to initiate this action to protect our innovations and registered intellectual property in Europe. Our objective is to stop the illegal use of Huawei’s intellectual property and resolve this dispute through negotiation so that our technology is used in a lawful manner,” Huawei’s chief legal officer Song Liuping had said.

Recently Samsung and Apple have traded patent charges relating to their smartphones and tablet PCs.