FRAND

Summary: Senior judges from the UK and Germany used the OxFirst 12th IP and Competition Forum to discuss whether an interim license regime could provide a workable bridge in FRAND disputes—covering…

In late September, the Mannheim Local Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Germany’s Munich Regional Court issued the world’s first “anti-interim license” injunction orders (AILIs). These…

The withdrawal of the European Commission’s Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) Regulation proposal earlier this year has left a significant void in EU intellectual property policy. This decision was…

A long time ago, in a Europe not so far away, the UPC was launched with the ambition of restoring Order to the galaxy of European patent litigation. Fragmentation was to be defeated, procedural unity…

Maybe not all readers of this blog will know that there once was a “North German Confederation” which existed from July 1867 to December 1870, after which it became part of the newly to-be-founded…

On 14 May, the EPO published the study Standards and the European patent system. The study seeks to improve transparency in the relationship between standards and patents in Europe, by providing…

The Court of Appeal’s judgment in Optis Cellular Technology LLC v Apple Retail UK Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 552, handed down on 1 May 2025, is arguably the most significant UK FRAND decision since Unwired…

Much like Black Sabbath’s iconic track "Paranoid"—an anthem whose unsettling riffs once left skeptics bewildered—I find myself contemplating the equally discordant landscape of Standard Essential…

Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) are at the heart of global technology markets, particularly in 4G/5G communications. While SEPs ensure interoperability, they also raise significant licensing…