OPPO snatched victory from jaws of defeat in Federal Patent Court, may now get decisive leverage over Nokia

Context: In the long-running (since July 2021) standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing dispute between Nokia and OPPO, prospects for a settlement appeared dim after the Finnish company announced its intent to appeal a Chinese court’s FRAND determination. Nokia’s injunctions forced OPPO out of the German market, but the smartphone maker deemed that the lesser evil than caving to royalty demands it rejected when a previous agreement was up for renewal.

What’s new: Two German OPPO v. Nokia cases (one in Munich, one in Mannheim) have the potential for injunctions that could come down and be enforced in a matter of months. One of those cases appeared dead in the water, but a turnaround occurred yesterday (Tuesday, January 16, 2024) in the Federal Patent Court of Germany, resulting in the affirmance of OPPO’s EP3445093 on “dedicated information transmission based on validity of scheduling information.”