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

Nokia pulls a Huawei against Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount: prepared to grant interim license

Florian Mueller

Context:

  • UK interim licenses
    • Recently, implementers of standard-essential patents (SEPs) have brought various FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) rate-setting actions in the High Court of Justice for England & Wales (EWHC). Sometimes they even seek a FRAND determination for disputed SEPs or outright non-SEPs.
    • The fiercest fight in this regard is unfolding between InterDigital and Amazon, with a Unified Patent Court (UPC) contempt hearing taking place in Mannheim tomorrow (February 25, 2026 ip fray article).
    • The biggest surprise so far has been Huawei’s decision to seek the mirror image of an interim-license declaration against WiFi router maker TP-Link, and successfully so (February 5, 2026 ip fray article).
  • Nokia v. Paramount and Nokia v. Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD)
    • Nokia has an active licensing program for video patents, some of which are not SEPs by any stretch of the imagination while some other patent claims relate to encoding, which is not covered by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) FRAND (or actually RAND, but the omission of the F is meaningless) pledge.
    • Nokia brought patent infringement lawsuits against Paramount in the U.S. and Brazil this past summer (August 22, 2025 ip fray article).
    • A few months later, a largely overlapping campaign started against Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) within seconds of the end of a standstill period (November 1, 2025 ip fray article).
    • Disputes over UK antisuit injunctions arose (November 5, 2025 ip fray article). Nokia offered a non-proliferation agreement (December 1, 2025 ip fray article).
    • WBD also brought FRAND-related claims in the U.S. (January 9, 2026 ip fray article).
    • The EWHC expedited the related FRAND proceedings to the maximum extent (February 2, 2026 ip fray article).

What’s new: In a surprising turn of events, Nokia declared itself prepared to extend interim licenses to those two streamers, with the EWHC determining an appropriate royalty for a long-term license and setting the terms of interim payments. However, it appears that WBD and Paramount are now suddenly less excited about making the UK the key jurisdiction for this set of disputes. This morning, a two-day hearing started before Mr Justice Meade, which would presumably not (at least not to this extent) be necessary if WBD and Paramount were the willing licensees they claimed to be. TP-Link, too, criticized Huawei’s proposal, but in vain.

Direct impact: WBD and Paramount are facing a credibility issue, making an outcome such as in Huawei v. TP-Link rather likely, though the devil can be in the details and it remains to be seen what Mr Justice Meade will decide regarding the FRAND compliance of Nokia’s proposal. After bringing UK FRAND actions, Paramount and WBD cannot walk back entirely. They can just jockey for position now, trying to obtain reasonably favorable terms.

Wider ramifications:

  • Distinguishable situations in Nokia v. WBD & Paramount / Nokia v. Acer & ASUS
    • In the separate Nokia cases against Acer and Asus (also over video streaming patents, but those companies are major PC/laptop makers), an interim-license declaration by the EWHC is under appeal (December 18, 2025 ip fray article).
    • There are wider commercial issues in that context. For example, Acer and Asus have brought their own SEP assertions against Nokia and its customers (which has even dragged Ericsson into the Nokia v. Acer dispute: February 18, 2026 ip fray article). Those cases would not be resolved by the unidirectional UK rate-setting cases brought by Acer and Asus.
    • The Munich I Regional Court has already ruled Nokia has met its FRAND obligations with respect to Acer and Asus (February 3, 2026 ip fray article). The UK court is not a competent court of appeal for the Munich court.
    • Nokia’s United States International Trade Commission (USITC or ITC) complaint against those companies will go to trial next week.
  • Thus far no 100% consensual agreement on UK interim license
    • Be careful what you wish for. Betting on UK proceedings as a means of delaying the conclusion of a license agreement, hoping that a patentee will in the meantime accept a low-ball offer, is one thing. Actually committing to dispute resolution on this basis is another. What Nokia and previously Huawei have done may be a litmus test for (un)willingness.
    • So far there does not appear to have been a single UK FRAND action in which both parties consistently favored dispute resolution in the UK. In Panasonic v. Xiaomi, it was Panasonic who brought the original action but Xiaomi who sought an interim license. In various other cases, SEP holders opposed the grant of an interim license. ZTE became the first net licensor in a given dispute to win a UK interim-license appeal (October 31, 2025 ip fray article) while others lost. And now there have already been three implementers whose love for the EWHC ended the moment the patentee proposed an interim deal.
  • No patent on litigation tactics
    • Nokia was free to do what worked for Huawei, just like countless others have drawn inspiration from Nokia’s patent litigation strategies.
    • With respects to tactics as well as venues, Nokia has frequently been a pioneer.

Nokia statement

A Nokia spokesperson has provided the following statement:

Nokia’s aim is to ensure that we receive fair compensation for the use of our technologies and to maintain a level playing field for companies who have already agreed to pay for the use our technologies. We have always said that no court should set a global rate without the consent of both parties.  We maintain this position, especially as Nokia has not initiated any legal proceedings against Paramount or Warner Bros in the UK. Nonetheless, we have agreed to meet Paramount and Warner Bros’ demands for the UK court to determine the appropriate royalty for the patent license they need to Nokia’s technology.

Licensing principles are still evolving in the streaming services market, and we have confidence in the UK court endorsing Nokia’s valuation based on the agreements we have in place.Now that Paramount or Warner Bros have what they were seeking, we hope they will engage constructively to resolve this dispute. We also reiterate our firm belief that legally binding arbitration in a neutral, internationally recognized forum is a more effective mechanism to resolve global patent disputes.

Scope of license

Paragraph 10 of Mr Justice Meade’s January 15, 2026 judgment following a hearing states that the EWHC could set a price for “the entire relevant Nokia portfolio of SEPs and [non-SEPs] by consent of Nokia.”

Nokia has consistently (already in the meanwhile-settled dispute with Amazon) opposed the idea that a court can set terms for non-SEPs over the patentee’s objection, but in this case Nokia is prepared to consent to such determination. As a result, WBD and Paramount could receive a license to the full Nokia Video Portfolio (as it is officially called in licensing and litigation):

  • WBD and Paramount would get a license for the use of Nokia’s video technologies in their streaming services.
  • The relevant standards are Advanced Video Coding (AVC/H.264) and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265).
  • Decoding patent claims are undisputedly FRAND-pledged and included in the license. 
  • Additionally, patent claims which cover encoding for producing an encoded bitstream capable of being decoded by an AVC- or HEVC- compliant decoder will be covered.
  • The third category of covered claims are Nokia’s other patent claims which relate to video technology but are not considered by either party to be essential to any standard.
  • Cellular SEPs and WiFi SEPs would not be included.

Financial and other terms

Nokia’s proposal would enable the court to determine the appropriate royalty for a license scope that is customary based on what Nokia previously agreed with other streamers.

Interim payments would be made until the appropriate royalty has been adjudicated after a full rate-setting trial.

The UK court would resolve all disputed terms, resulting in a complete settlement and global license agreement. Nokia undertakes to offer the license as determined by the English courts, including any variation that could result from an appeal.

Not a scalable “business model” for the English courts

While there are now three disputes (Huawei v. TP-Link, Nokia v. WBD, Nokia v. Paramount) that may indeed be resolved in the UK without injunctions in other jurisdictions forcing a settlement somewhere along the way, this still does not mean that the English courts are now going to become a sought-after global FRAND forum.

It is conspicuous that once one party to a dispute warms up to an interim license deal, the other side cools off.

If two parties agreed prior to litigation that they would want a neutral FRAND determination, they would be unlikely to opt for the English courts, where the proceedings are the most expensive ones short of U.S. litigation. They would agree on arbitration, also for confidentiality. Implementers always they say they want transparency in SEP licensing, but that applies to other parties’ agreements. They don’t want their own information to become publicly accessible.

Prior to arbitration, parties might try mediation first. Either way, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) will be preferred over going together (or sequentially) to a court of law to obtain a FRAND ruling.