In-depth reporting and analytical commentary on intellectual property disputes and debates. No legal advice.

Category: European Union

Podcast: interview with Dr. Peter Georg Picht, SEP and competition law expert

May 22, 2026

In our latest podcast episode, ip fray interviewed Dr. Peter Georg Picht, an IP and competition law professor at Zurich University, and a fellow with the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition.
IP is the “basis of Europe’s competitiveness” – it would be “unrealistic” to think otherwise, says IP Europe’s new Secretary General Niklas Lagergren

May 1, 2026

“Our ideas and our intellectual property are basically the only possible basis we have for our future competitiveness,” Mr. Lagergren, who boasts 30 years in IP policy experience in Brussels, told ip fray in an exclusive interview.
UK must be careful: U.S. Trade Representative’s Special 301 Report raises SEP-specific concerns (global license rulings, antisuit injunctions)

May 1, 2026

The reasons given for the EU’s debut on the watch list are primarily pharma-related — for now. The SEP issues raised in the report are a warning to the UK.
Helsinki LD solves part of less-frequented UPC venues’ chicken-and-egg problem

April 30, 2026

The Helsinki LD adopts the Hague LD’s equivalence standard based on an approach that offers greater predictability for litigants considering smaller UPC venues. AIM lost again.
Belgian SME keeps Dutch at UPC Brussels LD as CFI president rejects Esko’s bid to switch case to English

April 30, 2026

The President of the UPC Court of First Instance has refused Esko Software’s push for English, keeping a Brussels patent fight in Dutch.
UPC Milan LD stays Spanish long-arm infringement claim pending national revocation: a first

April 22, 2026

The UPC’s Milan LD confirmed long-arm jurisdiction over Spanish distributor Motocard, but stayed the infringement claim for Spain pending a national revocation action, the first such stay by the UPC.
New EU Technology Transfer Guidelines take unclear positions on collective patent licensing, but won’t enable LNGs to get traction

April 16, 2026

The European Commision’s updated Technology Transfer Guidelines discuss patent pools and LNGs, and they are unlikely to matter as they are legally and economically flawed. They even contradict themselves.
BREAKING: China issues regulations countering foreign extraterritorial jurisdiction

April 13, 2026

The global ZTE v. Samsung FRAND rate-setting decision is potentially a targeted scenario.
UPC docket distribution is ‘harmful’ and ‘undermining’ or a ‘non-concern’? European patent attorneys strongly divided

April 13, 2026

A letter by the European Patent Lawyers Association reveals that most non-German European patent attorneys believe that the current state of the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC’s) case distribution (currently very German-heavy) is a huge concern and implore the UPC to change its system. Germans, on the other hand, are strongly against intervention.
BREAKING: Transsion escalates Ericsson patent litigation in UPC, files its first-ever public patent infringement complaint

March 26, 2026

Transsion has sued Ericsson in the Unified Patent Court’s Lisbon Local Division over the infringement of one of its patents, marking its first-ever publicly-known patent infringement complaint.