FRAND-ly Fire: the Supreme Court’s Decision in Unwired Planet International v Huawei

The judgment decided a number of issues, including whether the English court has jurisdiction to grant injunctions restraining infringement of UK patents of major importance to the telecommunications industry if the infringing party refuses to enter into a global license of a patent portfolio at rates determined by the English court, whether England was on the facts of the case the appropriate forum to determine the dispute, and whether an injunction should have been refused on the basis of alleged non-compliance with mandatory guidance in the CJEU decision in Huawei v ZTE.

This podcast focuses principally on the determination of the Supreme Court on the issue of the jurisdiction of the English courts, which it determined do indeed have jurisdiction to unilaterally set the terms of global intellectual property licenses on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (or FRAND) terms, which are terms of considerable commercial significance within telecommunications and other technical industries operating in an international context. The confirmation provided by the Supreme Court that the English courts have jurisdiction to determine the terms of FRAND licences on a global and not simply a national basis may have potential to make the UK a hotspot for determination of IP disputes in this area moving forward, and hence may be of significance to parties operating in telecoms and other technical industries, as well as to their advisors.

This podcast is presented by Mike Cumming-Bruce, who is one of the founders of the TDN and a senior associate at Cooke, Young & Keidan. If further information regarding either the issues in the podcast or the TDN more generally would be useful, please feel free to reach out to Mike by email to [email protected]