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Context: Earlier this month, InterDigital served two anti-interim-license injunctions (AILIs) on Amazon (October 2, 2025 ip fray article). The Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Mannheim Local Division (LD) and the Munich I Regional Court’s 7th Civil Chamber granted them to protect their infringement jurisdiction. Mr Justice Meade of the High Court of Justice for England & Wales (EWHC) read about it on this website and summoned the parties to a case management conference (October 14, 2025 ip fray article). It appeared that the next major decision was going to relate to potentially edited trial schedule for Amazon’s request for a FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) determination. But no.
What’s new: Mr Justice Meade has now granted Amazon an ex parte preliminary injunction (PI) against InterDigital over its AILIs. Amazon described its motion as one for an anti-antisuit injunction (AASI), but given that a request for an interim license is (absent particular circumstances such as in Panasonic v. Xiaomi) an antisuit motion by any other name, the AILIs were the equivalent of AASIs and actually followed the logic of the UPC’s and the German courts’ AASIs. Therefore, what Amazon has now obtained in the UK is actually an AAASI. And the part of the order that seeks to prevent InterDigital from taking measures against it is the world’s first (at least in a standard-essential patent (SEP) context) AAAAASI (yes, 5 A’s).
Direct impact: Mr Justice Meade authorized service of process on Bird & Bird, InterDigital’s UK counsel. The PI (called “interim injunction”) threatens “a fine, imprisonment, confiscation of assets or other punishment under the law” should InterDigital or its directors or officers take any steps in non-UK courts to prevent Amazon from pursuing the relief it is seeking in the UK. InterDigital now has to choose between taking the risk of contempt-of-court sanctions in the UK or letting the Munich court take measures against Amazon. In commercial terms, InterDigital would have much less at stake in the UK than Amazon in Germany, much less in all of UPCland. But the most forceful solution would be for InterDigital to have the UPC and, especially, the Munich I Regional Court declare Amazon an unwilling licensee for what it has done, and to seek multiple patent PIs on that basis. So far, no European court has granted a PI over a SEP because of the complexity of resolving a FRAND defense. Here, the FRAND part could be easily resolved at least under Munich case law.
Wider ramifications: While this is an aggressive step, Mr Justice Meade still deserves credit for the fact that he does not make derogatory comments on his peers’ work. That said, this situation shows that fighting fire with fire is problematic. The only way to put a definitive end to this would be patent PIs or if each jurisdiction generally developed, with legislative intervention if necessary, draconian rules for those seeking to impose licensing terms for patents in a given jurisdiction through whatever legal measure in another jurisdiction, absent a contractual agreement between the parties (and not just third-party beneficiary rights).
Here’s the AAASI/AAAAASI order, which we have obtained from a third party we won’t name:
This order creates a situation in which the enforceability of InterDigital’s intellectual property rights enforceable in UPCland and, particularly, in Germany is facing a fundamental threat. Amazon seeks to impose a UK FRAND determination on InterDigital and to prevent InterDigital from the enforcement of its rights in jurisdictions that are prepared to grant injunctions without waiting for the English courts (or performing a similar rate-setting exercise themselves).
As we explained earlier this year (February 4, 2025 ip fray article), the only reliable way to dissuade implementers from leveraging jurisdictions like the UK in such ways (which Amazon, in its dispute with Nokia, even tried with respect to non-SEPs) would be for injunction-centric jurisdictions to grant ex parte patent PIs. Those would require Amazon to shut down its Prime streaming service in Germany (if not in multiple countries) and to stop selling various products implementing the standards in question. That would end the dispute, including its UK part.
This is not the first situation in which the question of whether a company should simply treat the UK as no-go territory because of its regulatory and judicial overreach comes up. Apple’s outside counsel told the EWHC in the early stages of the dispute with Optis that at some point it would make more economic sense for a company not to sell products in the UK than to agree to pay an elevated global license fee. In 2023, Microsoft had to deal with an outrageous decision by the UK Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) blocking a merger. Microsoft’s market capitalization exceeds the UK’s GDP, and the gap is widening. The two metrics are not comparable in every sense, but reflective of how limited the UK’s power in the global arena is. At some point, Microsoft told the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it was going to close the $70B merger over the CMA’s prohibition, which ultimately wasn’t necessary, but in which case Microsoft might have had to leave the UK market. InterDigital’s website lists a London office, but based on the most recent developments in the UK, the company may contemplate leaving the UK. Activision Blizzard, in fact, did so: after the CMA’s crazy ruling, they moved their European headquarters to Barcelona, so King (the Candy Crush company) is still based in London. If companies do not have UK assets and their executives do not set foot on UK soil, enforcement of UK court orders against them is difficult.
Amazon is a company with many smart people and will have thought this through, but it may have underestimated how the UPC and the Munich I Regional Court view this behavior. InterDigital has not even asserted a single patent against Amazon, but there already is an unprecedented antisuit war raging. Amazon is doing this because it is afraid of InterDigital’s patent enforcement.
Generally speaking, UK judges may have greater enforcement powers and also more wiggle room with respect to service of process. However, the UPC and the Munich I Regional Court can grant SEP injunctions against unwilling licensees without being bound by the Unwired Planet v. Huawei mechanism.
Other cases
Unrelated in terms of the parties and patents, the EWHC will commence a 3.5-day hearing tomorrow regarding Nokia’s jurisdictional challenge to Acer’s, ASUS’s and Hisense’s pursuit of UK FRAND determinations, and will also hear the three Asian companies’ request for interim-license declarations.