Context: In the first third of President Trump’s second term, the U.S. federal government has taken various initiatives to strengthen (or to combat efforts to weaken) standard-essential patent (SEP) enforcement:
- The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ or DOJ), or more specifically its Antitrust Division (DOJ-ATR), filed a Statement of Interest last year in a Disney v. InterDigital case in the District of Delaware, arguing that SEPs do not automatically confer market power and that a SEP holder’s conduct is not anticompetitive in a legal sense unless it actually harms the competitive process (October 7, 2025 ip fray article).
- Together with the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), the DOJ-ATR filed amicus briefs in three cases involving patents that are not (or at least not undisputedly) SEPs: Radian v. Samsung, Netlist v. Samsung (in the pre-institution phase of a United States International Trade Commission (USITC or ITC) proceeding), and Collision Communications v. Samsung (February 28, 2026 ip fray article).
- The DOJ-ATR is preliminarily investigating the German Automotive Licensing Negotiation Group (ALNG) (March 23, 2026 ip fray article).
- Recent statements by deputy U.S. antitrust chief Dina Kallay (March 25, 2026 ip fray article) also spell trouble for the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a group that allegedly abuses market power to force SEP holders into royalty-free licensing commitments. The European Commission (EC) had preliminarily investigated the Alliance for Open Media, but ultimately did nothing.
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