Context: A week and a half ago, Judge Araceli MartĂnez-OlguĂn of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted ZTE’s motion to dismiss Samsung’s U.S. FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) antitrust action (January 30, 2026 ip fray article). The basic outcome was known, but neither the reasons nor how the court viewed the prospects of an amended complaint.
What’s new: The full 11-page decision has now been handed down, and you can find it further below. There is no particular guidance as to how Samsung could revive its case through an amended complaint, but the court can’t rule out 100% that any attempt to amend the complaint would be futile, so Samsung has until February 20, 2026 to file an amended version if it wants to. Samsung’s case may have various other deficiencies, but for now the decision is based exclusively on the lack of the court’s personal jurisdiction over ZTE.
Direct impact:
- Unlike in certain antitrust cases where a motion to dismiss highlights specific shortcomings that a party may be able to cure (see, e.g., Celonis v. SAP in the same district: October 28, 2025 ip fray article), there is no particular guidance in this decision. The closest thing to that is a reference to Apple: Samsung argued that ZTE tried to license its patents to Apple, but no ZTE-Apple license agreement is publicly known; and even that would not necessarily tip the balance. The court still doesn’t allow discovery to go forward, so Samsung wouldn’t be able to amend its complaint based on new findings resulting from discovery.
- But the alternative is a direct Federal Circuit appeal, which would take well over a year to be resolved, with the realistic best-case scenario then being a remand to address ZTE’s remaining arguments for dismissal. In the meantime, the dispute will have settled out in all likelihood.
- Therefore, it’ may be’s conceivable that Samsung tries an amendment in district court regardless of the low likelihood of success, or that it gives up on the U.S. case altogether as it is pursuing similar claims in the UK and Germany (where a hearing was held a week ago). Furthermore, a Chinese FRAND determination (sought by ZTE, not Samsung) could come down any moment.
Wider ramifications:
- Samsung is presently on a losing streak. This week, a quarterly report by InterDigital revealed that Samsung is attempting to get a $1B arbitral award overturned by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) (February 10, 2026 ip fray article). Last week, it became known that in the Brazilian part of the dispute, ZTE’s lawyers snatched victory from the jaws of defeat (February 4, 2026 ip fray article). Originally they had the majority of the court against them, but in the end Samsung was essentially deemed a hold-out and a 5G injunction reinstated. Notably, Samsung became the first implementer of standard-essential patents (SEPs) to lose a UK interim-license appeal (October 31, 2025 ip fray article), which was a remarkable win for ZTE.
- There have also been other litigation outcomes lately that were negative for Samsung, such as the Collision Communications jury trial in the Eastern District of Texas (October 14, 2025 ip fray article). And the same judge who threw out Samsung v. ZTE also dismissed a declaratory judgment (DJ) action by Samsung against Oura last year (March 27, 2025 ip fray article). Samsung is a great company, but things aren’t going great for them in patent litigation (and arbitration).
- Other parties may learn from this and infer that it is not a winning strategy to bring scattershot FRAND litigation.
Here’s the order:
To explain the broad lines:
General jurisdiction was a non-issue. Not even Samsung alleged it. That would have required ZTE to be California-based.
Specific jurisdiction (with respect to the claims) was argued only with respect to the federal (Sherman Act, i.e., federal antitrust law) claim, and the state law claims were made dependent on that one. Samsung later tried to change that based on a footnote, but the decision notes that such arguments must be mad in the body of a pleading.
For specific jurisdiction, certain activities by a company based somewhere else can indeed suffice. But the mere fact that U.S. patents are part of ZTE’s portfolio is not enough. Licensing discussions were held between ZTE (China) and Samsung (South Korea), two Asian companies. Prior contracts governed by California and New York law didn’t make those negotiations California-bound. Other decisions in the same district clearly said that a choice-of-law clause in and of itself doesn’t mean any activity is directed at the forum.
Samsung emphasized certain standardization- and licensing-related activities by U.S. based personnel, including an executive as well as some inventors. But most of the related work was done in China.
An amended complaint by Samsung would obviously trigger a renewed motion to dismiss. In the meantime, there could be a Munich injunction (February 10, 2026 ip fray article; also, a couple of trials were vacated last year, on a basis that suggested to us that the parties were finalizing a deal (October 23, 2025 ip fray article), and will finally go to trial over the next couple of months). In mid-March, the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Mannheim LD will hold a trial.
The UK FRAND trial that just ended was most likely a waste of time, money, and energy. While Mr Justice Richard Meade is an extremely hard-working judge, a FRAND determination is not the kind of decision anyone can make quickly.
It’s been a few months since the Chinese FRAND trial, so a decision could come down any moment.
Counsel
For Samsung, Kirkland & Ellis’s Greg Arovas delivered oral argument at last year’s motion-to-dismiss hearing, and Ed Donovan also participated in the Zoom call.
Perkins Coie’s John Esterhay argued for ZTE, joined by Kevin A. Zeck (also Perkins Coie) and Foley & Lardner’s Kevin Littman. We added this win to category 10 of our SEP achievements as a notable win for Perkins Coie.