Context: The Landgericht München I (Munich I Regional Court) is the world’s leading patent — and also standard-essential patent (SEP) — injunction venue. In two cases where ASUS happened to be the defendant, the court has recently further elaborated on its FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) principles and in that context also criticized UK territorial overreach as “flawed in its legitimacy” (February 3, 2026 ip fray article).
What’s new: Yesterday, the Munich court’s 7th Civil Chamber held a Broadcom (Avago) v. Renault trial, at the end of which it ruled from the bench that Broadcom’s EP1903733 (“Method and system for an extended range ethernet line code”) was valid and infringed, and that Broadcom’s royalty demand was within the FRAND range. The patent-in-suit is essential to the IEEE 802.3bw standard (commonly referred to as “Ethernet”, i.e., the ubiquitous local area network cable standard).
Direct impact:
- If Broadcom opts for provisional enforcement pending the expected appeal, which requires the provision of collateral (a multi-million euro amount, but doable), Renault must stop selling its highly successful Clio and Mégane models in Germany.
- The court has also ordered the recall and destruction of infringing products. Presumably the “destruction” requirement would be met by removing the relevant hardware components.
- The accused embodiments are the Renault Clio’s navigation system and the Renault Mégane’s telematics control unit (TCU). Two different chipsets Renault obtains from suppliers are at issue.
Wider ramifications:
- This is a major new Munich SEP ruling within four years of the court’s famous IP Bridge v. Ford decision that resulted in Ford taking an Avanci pool license.
- Avanci Automotive covers cellular SEPs, but a different pool would have to be created to give automakers a comparable one-stop shop solution for patents that are essential to non-cellular standards such as Ethernet.
- There are also some Broadcom (Avago) v. Renault cases pending in the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
The standard-setting organization behind 802.3bw (Ethernet) is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which is particularly famous for the IEEE 082.11 (WiFi) standard. The IEEE is based in the U.S. and uses the term RAND, but the absence of the F makes no practical difference.
Broadcom made a commitment to the IEEE to grant licenses to the patent-in-suit on (F)RAND terms. In the Munich court’s analysis,
- Broadcom’s final licensing offer for a worldwide license covering a portfolio consisting of thousands of patents was within the FRAND range, but
- Renault’s final counteroffer was clearly infra-FRAND.
The analysis was performed on the basis of comparable license agreements with other automakers. Like in Nokia v. ASUS (February 3, 2026 ip fray article), the requirement was not that the offer to the defendant had to be 100% consistent with other offers. It just has to be within the permissible FRAND range. Based on the court’s finding that the offer was within FRAND, Renault had no basis to reject it. It was therefore deemed an unwilling licensee and ended up being enjoined.
The case no. is 7 O 7655/25.
Court and counsel
Panel: Presiding Judge Dr. Oliver Schoen (“Schön” in German), Judge Katalin Tözsér, and Judge Dr. Florian Schweyer.
Counsel for Broadcom: CBH’s Hannes Jacobsen.
Counsel for Renault: we have not yet verified who represented Renault at yesterday’s Munich hearing, but in the UPC, Renault is being represented against Broadcom by Bird & Bird.