Huawei is in discussions with Verizon and other U.S. firms over royalty payments for the use of the Chinese giant's patented technology, the company's legal chief told CNBC on Thursday.

The company announced on Thursday that, by the end of 2018, it had been granted 87,805 patents globally. Of those, 11,152 are registered in the U.S. Thousands of elements of that intellectual property (IP) will be "standard essential patents," which are technologies critical for mobile networks including 3G, 4G and now 5G. Other companies, including some of Huawei's rivals, will need to use the patented technology.

Even though Verizon doesn't buy products directly from Huawei, its other vendors are using Huawei-patented technology.

Reuters reported earlier this month that Huawei is asking Verizon to pay $1 billion in royalties for using over 230 patents.

Huawei Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping confirmed to CNBC that discussions are ongoing and are in an "early phase."

"We provided several hundred patents to Verizon, these are patents in various domains in network operations. These patents cover almost the end-to-end network operations of Verizon," Song said. "As for this specific amount of royalties, it is now just a preliminary stage of the discussion. We have not yet arrived at the discussion of the specific amount of royalties."

Royalty payments will often be negotiated for a several-year term. It could be to cover previous years or the next few years. Song said those terms with Verizon had not been decided yet. Huawei is also in discussions with other U.S. companies and firms from "elsewhere" too cover royalties, the exec added, but declined to name them because the negotiations are confidential.