Context: Samsung brought scattershot FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) complaints against ZTE in multiple jurisdictions. Not counting counterclaims, they brought complaints
- in the UK (where a rate-setting trial was recently held, but an interim-license declaration had been reversed on appeal: October 31, 2025 ip fray article),
- in the United States (where ZTE prevailed on a motion to dismiss: February 11, 2026 ip fray article),
- in Germany (February 13, 2025 ip fray article), and
- they tried to turn the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) into a quasi-judicial forum, but withdrew after the Munich I Regional Court ordered a preliminary injunction (October 16, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new: This morning, the Landgericht Frankfurt (Frankfurt Regional Court)1 announced a decision. It assumed jurisdiction over Samsung’s claim to seek a FRAND offer from ZTE, but decided against Samsung on the merits. At this point, no further details are known, other than the basic outcome.
Direct impact: A win in Frankfurt would have potentially enabled Samsung to derail or delay Samsung’s German (or even Unified Patent Court (UPC)) enforcement actions, such as one in Munich that went to trial this month and will be adjudicated in mid-April (February 14, 2026 ip fray article). They also have trials coming up in the UPC’s Mannheim Local Division (LD) on March 17-19 and the Munich I Regional Court on March 25 as well as April 30. An appeal of the Frankfurt ruling would take a year, thus too late to impact those infringement actions.
Wider ramifications:
- If one includes a recent Brazilian appellate decision (February 4, 2026 ip fray article), which doesn’t bode well for Samsung’s FRAND defenses down there, it Samsung has been on a losing streak against ZTE, with respect to FRAND, for months.
- A Chinese FRAND determination may come down any moment now and give the parties the guidance they need to settle.
- Right now it doesn’t look like time is on Samsung’s side. German and/or UPC injunctions loom large. Some Samsung countersuits will also go to trial soon, but there is a major asymmetry in exposure.
- Samsung’s serial losses against ZTE may dissuade other parties from using similar “brute-force” tactics in standard-essential patent (SEP) litigation.
- The long-from city name is Frankfurt am Main, or Frankfurt on the Main (river), to distinguish it from Frankfurt an der Oder, or Frankfurt on the Oder (river), which is in the northeast of Germany, bordering Poland. But the Frankfurt that is famous for the banks, skyscrapers and international airport is the one on the Main, and that’s where this case was decided. Given that the other Frankfurt is irrelevant in a patent or antitrust context, we typically just refer to the court as the Frankfurt Regional Court. ↩︎