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BREAKING: First-ever major SEP infringement suit in Morocco: Ericsson ramps up 4G, 5G SEP enforcement campaign against Transsion in Indonesia, Colombia, Morocco

Olivia Sophie Rafferty

Context: Last month, Ericsson sued China’s Transsion, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone supplier, over 4G and 5G-related standard-essential patents (SEPs) in Brazil (the 1st Business Court of Rio de Janeiro State Court), India (Delhi High Court), Nigeria (Federal High Court of Nigeria, Lagos Judicial Division), and the Unified Patent Court (UPC: The Hague Local Division (LD), Mannheim LD, and Paris Central Division (CD)) (November 14, 2025 ip fray article). While the companies had been in licensing discussions since August 2017, Ericsson alleged that Transsion continued to reject FRAND offers, forcing the SEP holder to take legal action. The campaign involved the first publicly known patent infringement suit filed in Nigeria. While it was an unusual move, it did not come as a surprise given Transsion’s 63% share of Nigeria’s smartphone market.

What’s new: Ericsson has now also sued Transsion in Indonesia, Colombia, and – in another landmark move – Morocco, Robert Earle, Ericsson’s Vice President, Patent Assertion and Enforcement, announced on LinkedIn today (December 19, 2025 LinkedIn post by Robert Earle). Despite offering Transsion arbitration over FRAND-compliant terms, the company continues to “benefit” from Ericsson’s patented technology without a license, and “justice delayed is justice denied”, Mr. Earle said today. The suits have been filed in the Judicial Delegature of the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC); Civil Circuit Courts of Bogota, the Commercial Court at the Central Jakarta District Court, and the Tribunal of Commerce of First instance in Casablanca.

Direct impact: As noted by Mr. Earle, the second wave of lawsuits has only come after the expiration of a deadline for Transsion to accept an arbitration offer, which he describes as “FRAND-compliant”, and should have been welcomed by the Chinese smartphone maker. Mr. Earle notes that Ericsson’s 4G royalty rate was previously validated as FRAND-compliant by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and later affirmed by the Fifth Circuit (August 31, 2021 Ericsson v. HTC Fifth Circuit decision). Then, although its 5G portfolio is of “significantly greater value”, Ericsson offered to license it for its adjudicated 4G rate. That, he emphasized, is not “‘supra-FRAND’ under any stretch of the imagination”. But Transsion continues to engage in hold-out, Mr. Earle added.

Wider ramifications: This is the first time that a major SEP owner such as Ericsson has filed a publicly known SEP infringement suit in Morocco, making it an even greater watershed case after the company also filed suit in Nigeria. Transsion holds the leading share of the smartphone market in Morocco (over 50%). It will be interesting to see what happens if the suit goes ahead in Casablanca. Morocco inherited many elements of its legal framework from the Napoleonic Code, but all its proceedings are strictly in Arabic. We were only able to find one suit in patent infringement on Clarivate’s Darts-ip, filed in 2017 by retailer software developer Orika against a local rival over patents related to a garlic pump product. But Ericsson’s strategy is clear: target Transsion in major pressure points where the company owns large market shares, even if it means filing in courts where patent infringement disputes are still rare (like Indonesia, which Nokia had used in its dispute against OPPO, although the case was dismissed on procedural grounds). Transsion owns approximately 21% of Indonesia’s smartphone market, while it is seeing substantial growth in Colombia.

Transsion is Ericsson’s last remaining unlicensed top-ten smartphone supplier. It is likely that it has filed this second wave in hopes that it will reach the same endpoint as other SEP holders, such as Philips (July 16, 2025 ip fray article) and Qualcomm (January 16, 2025 ip fray article), have.

Transsion is still embroiled in other litigation, though, including suits filed by InterDigital in the UPC, India, and Brazil over cellular SEPs and video coding patents (October 31, 2025 ip fray article).

It was the target of a slew of suits by Access Advance licensors NEC, JVC, Sun Patent Trust (July 17, 2025 ip fray article), Huawei (August 4, 2025 ip fray article), and Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) (August 18, 2025 ip fray article) in the UPC and Brazil – but that was settled with a licence earlier this month (December 1, 2025 ip fray article).

This year, Transsion also signed a patent license agreement with Nokia without litigation (January 30, 2025 ip fray article), and Via Licensing Alliance (July 22, 2025 ip fray article).

‘Justice delayed is justice denied’

Mr Earle’s post notes that despite needing to take legal action, Ericsson is committed to seeking a FRAND-compliant agreement. This is reflected in the way it chose not to seek enforcement of any type of injunction while Transsion considered its arbitration offer, he said.

He also asked: if Transsion’s “true goal” was a timely and neutral resolution, “why reject arbitration”?

The arbitration process can often be completed in less than 18 months, with the result being a binding cross-license agreement. But, according to an interview we conducted with Mr. Earle earlier this year (July 3, 2025 ip fray article), while Ericsson offers arbitration to many licensees, most reject or ignore arbitration offers. Only once courts signal a willingness to grant injunctive relief as a remedy to their hold-out strategy does their “appetite” for arbitration improve, he said.

But starting arbitration after litigation removes any progress made, resetting the clock on resolution and granting the potential licensee with further delay, he added.

And hold-out ultimately pressures SEP owners to accept royalties below fair or reasonable levels – while they invested in technology years before approaching the infringers and receive no compensation until a license is secured, they ultimately get an unfair disadvantage, he said.

When hold-out implementers are allowed to leverage the threat of “delayed justice” to insist innovators like Ericsson accept less than reasonable compensation, the innovation cycle breaks, Mr. Earle said. And, he concluded, as the saying goes:

“Justice delayed is justice denied.”

Counsel

Ericsson is relying on a network of local firms across different jurisdictions: