Vestel is one of Turkey’s leading consumer electronics manufacturers, producing and selling its smart TVs, white goods, and electric vehicle (EV) chargers globally. It is a large-scale implementer of SEPs, especially in the video codec (encoding and decoding) space.
Kemal Aygor steers the company’s IP unit, which sits within its parent company’s (Zorlu Holding) wider legal department. His team, which is composed of 15 IP specialists, including Turkish and European patent attorneys, Unified Patent Court (UPC) representatives, and other legal experts, manages a portfolio of over 1,000 patents that are filed across Europe, the U.S., China, and South Korea. The company is increasingly pouring resources into filing standard-essential patents (SEPs) in those countries, too.
In an exclusive interview with ip fray, Mr. Aygor reveals that Vestel is gradually playing more of a patentee role in the SEP landscape, discusses how he balances the patentee/implementer hat in SEP licensing negotiations, and emphasizes the importance of the UPC maintaining a level playing field so that market access is not unfairly impeded by “aggressive litigation strategies”.
Vestel is one of Turkey’s leading consumer electronics manufacturers, producing and selling its smart TVs, white goods, and electric vehicle (EV) chargers globally. It is a large-scale implementer of SEPs, especially in the video codec (encoding and decoding) space.
Mr. Aygor, who joined Vestel 17 years ago and has headed up its IP department for the last two, is also a Turkish and European patent attorney and a UPC representative. His primary goal when taking on the role was to transform the IP department from a “protective legal function” into a “strategic business asset”.
While it is still very much an implementer-heavy company, and so it is unwilling to be “aggressive” in enforcement (the company is yet to file any patent infringement lawsuits of its own), Vestel’s IP head notes that he has been working hard to ensure that his C-suite no longer sees IP as a response to external threats, but a “core component” of its global competitive strategy.
The company repeatedly found itself on the receiving end of SEP assertions in the past, such as by licensors of the Access Advance and Via Licensing Alliance pools. But the company now licenses its technologies through Via’s AVC program and the Avanci Video platform (March 28, 2025 ip fray article), and took a license from Advance’s HEVC program a couple of years ago (March 7, 2024 press release by Access Advance).
Simply remaining a manufacturer was “no longer a sustainable strategy”
“If you are working in the consumer electronics industry and you are one of the largest manufacturers, you are bound to face many licensing disputes,” Mr. Aygor says. So the company quickly learned that “simply remaining a manufacturer was no longer a sustainable strategy”, and to continue the business, it was essential to evolve into a company that “not only uses technology but also actively shapes standards”, he reveals.
The company has recently also started contributing its technologies to WiFi 8 and 6G (following its successful contributions in video codecs), as they lie at the “heart” of the consumer ecosystem. This has allowed Mr. Aygor to approach SEP licensing negotiations with both an implementer’s and a licensor’s point of view:
“Whether we are an implementer or a patentee, our goal remains the same: a balanced and predictable IP ecosystem. We don’t change our principles based on which hat we are wearing. Instead, we use our built experience for a more efficient licensing agreement.”
His top advice for implementers in SEP licensing negotiations includes not being “a passive observer” of the fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) process, but being active in discussions from day one. “If you wait to get litigated by a patent owner, that makes it a risky process,” he warns. “Be protective, transparent, and technically prepared to ensure the final agreement is truly fair for your business.”
Critical UPC remains “balanced”
While Mr. Aygor is a UPC representative, he has yet to test out the venue as either a claimant or a defendant. So far, though, he views the UPC positively. But, he warns, it is critical that the UPC maintains a “balanced approach” and does not tip towards being more patentee-friendly, such as the German courts.
The UPC has the potential to harmonize the European IP ecosystem, he believes, but to do this, it is vital that it “maintains a level playing field and ensures that the market access is not fairly received by aggressive litigation strategies”. Because, ultimately, when a court is more patentee-friendly, this places the entire burden on the implementer, which can severely undermine competition – especially in today’s challenging economic climate, he adds.