TIMELINE-The meteoric rise of China's Huawei

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BEIJING, July 1 (Reuters) - In just over two decades Huawei Technologies [HWT.UL] has become the world's third largest maker of mobile telecommunications gear, but its rapid rise has also been dotted with controversy and missteps.

Here is a chronology of key events in Huawei's history:

1982 - Ren Zhengfei retires as an officer in the People's Liberation Army, where he helped build its communications network

1988 - Ren founds Huawei as distributor of imported PBX products

1993 - Introduces its first major product, a digital telephone switch with large capacity of over 10,000 circuits

1996 - Wins first big overseas contract for fixed-line network products from Hong Kong's Hutchison-Whampoa

2003 - Forms joint venture with 3Com to build Internet protocol-based routers and switches

-- Cisco Systems (CSCO.O) sues for copyright violations, but eventually drops suit after Huawei agrees to stop selling some products and alter others

2004 - Overseas sales surpass domestic sales for first time

2007 - State media says Huawei gives $146 million to 7,000 employees to quit and then rehired them to skirt the higher costs of a new labour contract law

-- Plan to buy 3Com with partner Bain Capital fails on U.S. government concerns

2009 - Named world's top patent seeker, becoming the first Chinese company to head the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) list.

-- Suspends employee suspected of trying to steal data from Indonesian mobile firm Excelcomindo

-- 2008 contract orders rose 46 percent to $23.3 billion -- 75 percent of which came from overseas -- and expects orders to reach $30 billion this year.

-- Overtakes Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA) to become world's No. 3 mobile network gear maker, doubling its market share from a year ago, according to researcher Dell'Oro ($ = 6.83 yuan) (Reporting by Kirby Chien; Editing by Anshuman Daga)