The injunction relates to “an antisuit injunction in the form of an interim license” or equivalent instruments. The Chinese rate-setting proceedings are not generally enjoined.
Context:
- Nokia has concluded multiple license agreements with Chinese automakers without litigation (January 20, 2026 ip fray article), but felt forced to bring infringement lawsuits against Chinese automaker Geely last year (July 22, 2025 ip fray article).
- In response to a UK FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing) action by Amazon in which an interim-license declaration was being sought, InterDigital obtained the anti-interference injunctions (AIIs), called anti-interim-license injunctions (AILIs) at the time, from the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Mannheim Local Division (LD) and the Munich I Regional Court (October 2, 2025 ip fray article). The UPC’s Court of Appeal (CoA) will hear Amazon’s appeal next month. Interjurisdictional tensions between the UPC and the High Court of Justice for England & Wales (EWHC) were temporarily rising high, but at the moment everyone is awaiting the UPC CoA ruling (March 25, 2026 ip fray article).
- Separately, Acer and ASUS won interim-license declarations against Nokia in the UK late last year (December 18, 2025 ip fray article). Nokia’s appeal will be heard today and tomorrow.
- A recent statement by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) of China regarding the withdrawal of an antisuit policy “to the extent that it ever existed” (April 6, 2026 ip fray article) helped resolve, for now, a World Trade Organization (WTO) trade dispute that started with a complaint by the European Commission (EC). China has put new anti-overreach regulations in place (April 13, 2026 ip fray article).
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Statement by Nokia
Nokia has been engaged in long‑standing, good‑faith efforts to license its standardized technology to Geely on FRAND terms. After no agreement was reached, Nokia initiated patent enforcement proceedings in Europe in July 2025.
In response, Geely filed a rate-setting case in China and recently sought court‑ordered measures from the Chinese court that would compel an interim license on terms proposed by Geely and restrict Nokia’s ability to pursue lawful patent enforcement in Europe. Such measures risk distorting the market by granting an unfair competitive advantage to a single company, even though Western automotive manufacturers—and many Chinese automotive manufacturers—have already obtained licenses on FRAND terms. Nokia therefore applied for, and obtained, anti‑interference measures from the Unified Patent Court and the German courts. These measures are defensive in nature and intended solely to preserve Nokia’s right to pursue lawful patent enforcement in those jurisdictions. With these applications Nokia has not sought to interfere with the rate‑setting proceedings in China.
Once again, we encourage Geely to agree a license for the use of our technologies on FRAND terms, as its Chinese and global competitors have done already.
Court and counsel
Mannheim LD:
- Presiding Judge Prof. Peter Tochtermann;
- Judge-rapporteur Tobias Sender, who temporarily helped out on the InterDigital v. Amazon panel and attended a large part of the November 2025 hearing in that case; and
- Judge András Kupecz, a Dutch national and the Presiding Judge of the Munich seat of the UPC’s Central Division (CD) who is also the international judge on the InterDigital v. Amazon panel. In the Nokia v. Geely infringement case in Mannheim, Judge Mojca Mlakar (Ljubljana, Slovenia) is the international judge, but Judge Kupecz’s experience with anti-interference injunctions is presumably the reason for which he joined the two Mannheim-based panel members here.
Counsel for Nokia: Arnold Ruess (ip fray firm profile with numerous achievements including the InterDigital v. Amazon AILIs), with Tim Smentkowski (who was already involved when the first-ever SEP-related AASI came down in Munich in 2019) listed as lead counsel. Presumably, Cordula Schumacher is lead counsel as in InterDigital v. Amazon. We will try to obtain a complete list.
Counsel for Geely (in the infringement proceedings and presumably also here): Hogan Lovells’s (ip fray firm profile) Dr. Steffen Steininger.