SEP Essentials

My two previous posts in this series examined the tidbits that can be gleaned from the UK and Chinese cases in the ZTE/Samsung dispute, Courts That "FRAND" Differently: Part 1, and the first set of lessons that can and should be learned from them with a focus on structural problems (lessons 1-4), Courts that “FRAND” Differently Part 2: Lessons To Be Learned. This post also focuses on lessons that can and should be learned from the cases with a focus on FRAND licenses and “com

I recently posted about how two different courts –the High Court of England and Wales (“UK Court”) and China’s Chongqing Intermediate People’s Court (“Chinese Court”) – reached vastly different conclusions on the value of a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) portfolio cross-license for the same set of cellular SEP portfolios.[1] I originally wanted to title this series “Courts That Can’t Math.” I changed the title, however, to Courts That "FRAND" Differently b

Recently, two different courts — the High Court of England and Wales (“UK Court”) and China’s Chongqing Intermediate People’s Court (“Chinese Court”) — opined on what a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) portfolio cross-license would be for the very same 5G cellular SEP portfolios.[1] They came to significantly different results: the UK Court decided the balancing payment from Samsung to ZTE should be about $392 million whereas the Chinese Court decided it should

Several years ago, the European Union filed an action against China in the World Trade Organization alleging that China’s use of anti-suit injunctions (“ASIs”) in standard essential patent (“SEP”) cases violated the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS Agreement”) (see https://www.sepessentials.com/post/the-eu-complaint-against-china-update and https://www.sepessentials.com/post/first-pop-quiz-revisited-the-eu-complaint-against-china). I

I recently wrote about the 2026 Office of the United States Trade Representative Special 301 Report (“Report”) (see, 2026 USTR 301 Report). The Report claimed that Licensing Negotiation Groups (LNGs) are a “concerning development” that could harm competition. Not once, however, did the Report identify the much more concerning development of large patent pools that seek injunctions against implementers. So, let’s take another dive into competition law and the competition la

I recently attended the IPBC/IAM Live conference in Paris, where judges from both the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and a German court shared their perspectives on standard-essential patent (SEP) litigation. A consistent theme emerged from these discussions: neither the UPC nor Germany is equipped to make real FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) determinations. Florence Butin, President of the Court of First Instance of the UPC and herself a UPC judge, noted that th