We don’t normally report on scheduling decisions, but the standard-essential patent (SEP) ecosystem eagerly awaits the ruling by the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Higher Regional Court) in VoiceAge EVS v. HMD. It was originally scheduled for February 6, 2025, then postponed by two weeks to today, and has now been pushed back another four weeks to March 20, 2025.
The hearing took place on Halloween (October 31, 2024 ip fray article) and showed that the appeals court is struggling with how to decide on a prayer for injunctive relief in a SEP case (November 2, 2024 ip fray article). It is impossible to know whether the reason for the delay means the court is having second thoughts about its original idea of making the grant of an injunction solely dependent on whether or not an implementer provides collateral. Both sides explained why they do not agree with that approach, and the lower court has meanwhile also expressed its doubts (December 9, 2024 ip fray article).
A referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) would be the best way forward, but the regional appeals court does not have a formal obligation to do so: only the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) does.
This is a very busy month on the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) front:
- InterDigital sued Disney and its Hulu and ESPN+ subsidiaries in multiple jurisdictions over multimedia patents (February 3, 2025 ip fray article).
- New SEP lawsuits were filed against Xiaomi over ASUSTeK patents (February 6, 2025 ip fray article).
- Nokia won the first-ever Germany-wide SEP injunction against a major streaming service (February 7, 2025 ip fray article), with the $670M security requirement suggesting that Amazon told the court (unlike the general public) that the enforcement of that injunction would have major commercial impat (February 8, 2025 ip fray article).
- The European Commission abandoned its proposal for an EU SEP Regulation (February 11, 2025 ip fray article).
- Samsung is suing ZTE in Frankfurt, Germany, and the latter has already obtained a Brazilian preliminary injunction (February 13, 2025 ip fray article).
- The England & Wales Court of Appeal (EWCA) heard Lenovo’s appeal of the denial of an interim license from Ericsson (February 18, 2025 ip fray article).
- The first-ever SEP action (at least the first by an Avanci licensor) against a Chinese car maker started this month when Sol IP sued BYD (February 19, 2025 ip fray article).
- Nokia is suing payment terminal maker SUNMI, a Xiaomi-Alibaba joint venture, in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and two German national courts, and has obtained anti-antisuit injunctions (AASIs) from the UPC’s Munich Local Division as well as the Munich I Regional Court (February 20, 2025 ip fray article).