Acer, ASUS want “stay of stay” against Nokia in UK; appeals court clarifies arbitration scope, but accepts wiggle room for arbitrators

Context: Last week, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales (EWCA) ordered a permanent case management stay of Acer and ASUS’s UK RAND (reasonable and non-discriminatory¹) action (May 12, 2026 ip fray article). Nokia was deemed to have complied with its RAND licensing obligation by offering arbitration. A couple of disputed details were left to be resolved, however.

What’s new: Yesterday, the EWCA issued its follow-on decision, authored (again) by Lord Justice Arnold. Acer and ASUS were not granted a stay of the stay pending an appeal, nor leave to appeal. A clause that gives the arbitration panel significant wiggle room was upheld over Acer and ASUS’s objection, but Nokia cannot insist on a cross-licensing covering cellular standard-essential patents (SEPs). Only minor details are left to be sorted out, and the court encourages the parties to do so, but otherwise stands prepared to rule.

Direct impact:

• Acer and ASUS would hardly have requested leave to appeal if they weren’t otherwise going to petition the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) directly. We mentioned that possibility already last week and noted that the UKSC is a busy court that has already accepted a couple of SEP cases.
• Theoretically, Nokia could try a further appeal as well, but the scope of an appeal would be limited to what it did not get, which was much less than what Acer and ASUS were denied. Again, theoretically speaking, Nokia could decline to enter into arbitration unless Acer and ASUS accept that the outcome will be a cross-license. In that case, the case management stay in the UK would be lifted and the UK FRAND trial might go forward. Even in that scenario, it is not a given that Acer and ASUS will actually want to arbitrate, and then the question is how the UK judiciary would deal with a situation where Nokia is not prepared to modify its offer, but Acer and ASUS are not prepared to enter into arbitration even on theoretically modified terms. And, again theoretically speaking, Nokia could still seek anti-interference relief in other jurisdictions.
• A U.S. import ban (May 15, 2026 ip fray article) looms large.

Wider ramifications:

• The question of whether it is (F)RAND to seek, like Nokia, the complete resolution of a SEP dispute across different standards (which in this case would involve cellular SEPs, which Acer and ASUS are enforcing against Nokia’s U.S. customers) has not been resolved by courts yet, at least not in high-profile decisions. It is unlikely to be further clarified here. However, the EWCA’s suggestion that Nokia should also go to the UK and seek a FRAND determination there (over third-party patents) is unlikely to be adopted, given that companies like Nokia find more favorable jurisdictions elsewhere. The outlier result of the FRAND determination in Samsung v. ZTE (where the Unified Patent Court (May 12, 2026 ip fray article), two German courts, and the Chongqing Intermediate People’s Court arrived at results far more favorable to ZTE) is a major turnoff.
• There continues to be tension between UK and continental European judges. Just yesterday, a UK judge made a thinly-veiled threat of issuing antisuit injunctions against UPC long-arm enforcement (May 18, 2026 ip fray article). An important UPC hearing will take place on May 28, 2026 in Amazon v. InterDigital (ip fray will report). If the UPC makes it unequivocally clear that UK judicial imperialism will not be tolerated, SEP holders will be even less inclined to submit to UK jurisdiction, even if there is a get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of an arbitration offer.