Today was the second and final day of the OxFora 14th Intellectual Property and Competition Forum, entitled “The Global Chess Game: International Patent Strategy in a Fragmented World”. The event, which took place at the DPMA Forum in Munich (as well as online) kicked off with a heated debate between speakers from Nokia, Qualcomm, Amazon, and Dell, on preliminary injunctions and rate-setting kicks yesterday (June 23, 2026 ip fray article).
ip fray listened in on all the online sessions to cover some of the biggest highlights from the event.
Below is a short breakdown of the highlights from the final day:
‘Every jurisdiction wants to be important’
On the final panel of the day, three judges attempted to provide solutions on bridging the gaps between courts in global patent disputes:
- Prof. Peter Meier-Beck, a retired Presiding Judge from the German Supreme Court who is currently on the UPC Advisory Committee and teaches at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
- Dr. Juan He, a Judge at the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC)
- Judge Victor Torres, a Judge at the Rio de Janeiro State Court in Brazil
Prof. Meier-Beck questioned why, despite the prevalence of standard-essential patents (SEPs) today, there is still no consensus on how SEP disputes should be managed. The consequences of which, he noted, are a fragmented landscape in which the outcome of a dispute depends heavily on which jurisdiction moves the fastest – and antisuit injunctions (ASIs), anti-anti-suit injunctions, and anti-anti-anti-suit injunctions are the result.
He delivered three potential approaches to the audience that could mend that gap:
- Arbitration and mediation
- More serious efforts from the courts to understand one another (genuine engagement, not necessarily formal)
- Jurisdictional modesty: accepting that territorial limits do not map onto global disputes
Dr. He also briefly discussed some of the ways in which the Chinese system is attempting to bridge gaps – including by following all overseas SEP judgments with “great interest”.
But Judge Torres from Brazil emphasized that the real reason SEP disputes are split is that parties won’t cooperate, and so it is up to the courts to step up. Last month, during another OxFora event, he said that Brazil should not be the underdog and that he would be prepared to engage with judges from other jurisdictions about criteria for ASIs and similar cross-border instruments (May 13, 2026 ip fray article).
However, he warned today, at the moment, courts’ methods are not working because “every jurisdiction wants to be important”:
“Everyone wants to be here, everyone wants to play a part in all this. Sometimes, when we grant an ASI, it’s to assert our own jurisdiction, which is the opposite of what we have been preaching (judicial modesty),” he said.
According to Judge Torres, a solution already exists. In an international insolvency case he oversaw recently, a New York judge also on the case effectively appointed Judge Torres as the “leading judge”, and said he would not be making any decisions until he decided first.
“Why are we not doing that in the SEP field?” he questioned, continuing:
“We could choose to have an entity to help with this, yes, like WIPO or the UPC’s Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre, but sometimes parties want their own way, so they may not like that. We should at the very least respect each other’s decisions, and give each other a call to discuss cases before interfering with each other.”
Because, according to the judge, granting injunctions to block each other means progress will never happen.
“Yes, of course, judges are going to be famous, but we are not going to start a conclusion.”
Rate-setting or injunctions? Another debate
After a keynote by Fabian Hoffmann, a Judge at the German Supreme Court, on third-party determination of interim licenses, a panel moderated by an executive from Access Advance, with a speaker from Hoffmann Eitle, were joined by Xiaomi’s Cellular Licensing Lead, Shuang Cheng (June 24, 2026 LinkedIn post by Shuang Cheng). They together attempted to pick apart the subject of courts and rate-setting.
While Access Advance closed off the session with a discussion about the value of patent pools in obtaining “radical transparency” to fix SEP issues, Xiaomi’s Ms. Cheng and the speaker from Hoffmann Eitle fell on two opposing sides of the rate-setting discussion.
Ms. Cheng warned that the threat of an injunction may sometimes hinder progress, as it can create a threat that is “unrelated to the intrinsic value of the patent tech”. Meanwhile, a well-reasoned rate-determination often provides a “more constructive path” towards a solution, she believes. This is especially true in industries where the supply chains have hundreds of millions of consumers worldwide, she said.
“Judicious rate setting is not only legit today but also necessary in today’s SEP environment,” she added.
However, having different countries (i.e. Germany, the UK, and China) deploy different methodologies of arriving at different rates creates a degree of uncertainty and confusion. So while she stands by rate-setting, Ms. Cheng believes that how it comes about still needs to be fixed.
Meanwhile, the speaker from Hoffmann Eitle said they believe the injunction is the “way to go”. This is the only way to persuade a party that isn’t explaining enough, or not making enough effort to give a counteroffer, to come to the table, they said.
Rate-setting is a recent major theme in global patent litigation. A rate-setting trial in a major dispute between Nokia, Warner Bros., and Paramount (which the parties agreed to settle through a UK court-determined reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) license in February: February 26, 2026 ip fray article) is expected to be heard in November 2026. In a major development today, the High Court of Justice for England & Wales (EWHC) set confidential interim payments that Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount must make to Nokia pending the trial (June 24, 2026 ip fray article).
China at the forefront of SEP disputes
SPC Judge Dr. Juan He also gave an overview of how the SPC’s IP court is structured and how China has managed to go from being the “world’s factory” to the forefront of SEP disputes. The judge went over the core principles of Chinese injunctive relief, as well as mediation and other available resolution mechanisms, which ip fray recently reported extensively on: June 16, 2026 ip fray article.
In response to an audience question about how long it takes in China to obtain a first-instance judgment, she said the current average is roughly one year, but emphasized that it depends on the complexity of the case.
The panel that followed her focused on China and its global influence on litigation and licensing. It was moderated by a partner at King & Wood. The panelists included executives from Xiaomi, Nokia, Huawei, and ByteDance. They mostly agreed that China carries a lot of legal and commercial weight among global SEP disputes, not only because it is home to a major telecoms market, but also because it houses many standards contributors.
The panelists were also asked to mull over the rate-setting versus injunction issue, where they were also divided. While some feel that the landscape is very much in favor of patentees at the moment, others feel that we are “decades away” from global FRAND rates replacing injunctions.
One of the final sessions of the day featured speakers from Carpmaels & Ransford and Thum & Partner, as well as UPC judges Dr. Stefan Wilhelm and Dr. Christoph Schober, and Dr. Kemal Bengi, Chair of the Board of Appeal 3.5.05 at the European Patent Office (EPO). They discussed the convergence, divergence, and practical consequences of UPC and EPO case law.