Simultaneous Great Wall Motor settlements suggest Avanci license: who are the other 6 licensees among China’s top 10 car exporters?

Context:

• Three months ago, Avanci announced four new standard-essential patent (SEP) license agreements with Chinese automakers, taking the total count to 11 at the time (June 7, 2026 ip fray article).
• From near-simultaneous settlements, we deduced that Geely was one of the latest Chinese Avanci licensees (May 21, 2026 ip fray article).
• At that juncture, litigation by SEP holders IP Bridge and Sun Patent Trust against Great Wall Motor (GWM) was still pending (May 20, 2026 ip fray article).
• Last week, Avanci announced on LinkedIn an updated count of 20 license agreements with Chinese car makers, and stated that 7 of the licensees were among China’s top 10 exporters.

What’s new: It turns out that on June 10, 2026, joint stipulations of dismissal between GWM and the two SEP holders were filed with the Rio de Janeiro State Judiciary, and the cases were subsequently terminated. The IP Bridge case was pending for less than six months, and the Sun Patent Trust case for two and a half.

Direct impact & wider ramifications:

• Combined with other publicly available information, it becomes increasingly clear who the largest Chinese Avanci licensees are: BYD, Geely, and GWM settled recent litigation, and among the remaining 7 of China’s top 10 auto exporters, we can safely rule out Tesla (listed there because of its Chinese manufacturing operation), which is still litigating in the UK, so 2 of the other 9 in the top 10 have a license. Chery and SAIC have very high export volumes, which makes license agreements more likely, but nothing is certain until confirmed. Other possibilities include Changan, BAIC, Dongfeng, and JAC. Put differently, only two of Chery, SAIC, Changan, BAIC, Dongfeng, and JAC are not licensed at this stage.
• What is not known is to what extent those companies have 5G licenses. Some apparently have only 4G licenses at this point. A few months ago, Avanci announced 17 agreements with 11 Chinese car makers, suggesting that 5 of them had licensed only 4G.
• The results in Brazil show why it is one of the most important SEP jurisdictions in the world. BYD settled within 54 days of the filing of IP Bridge’s complaint (September 25, 2025 ip fray article). Brazilian judges increasingly recognize pool licensing offers as a sufficient means of discharging a SEP holder’s fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing obligation.
• Avanci’s high market penetration ups the ante for Tesla, which won a UK Supreme Court (UKSC) judgment that revived its UK case against Avanci, but which is still a long way from obtaining any tangible benefit (August 20, 2026 guest contribution to ip fray by Access Advance).