In the past five years, the UK courts have become an increasingly prominent forum for global disputes over the licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs) on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (F/RAND) terms. In 2020, the UK Supreme Court in Unwired Planet v. Huawei affirmed the UK judiciary’s jurisdiction “to determine the disputed terms of a global FRAND licence” despite arguments that the UK courts were “setting themselves up as a de facto global licensing tribunal.”
More recently, the UK courts have begun issuing interim license declarations that a willing licensor and willing licensee would enter an interim license on terms set by the UK courts until the court could set the terms of a global F/RAND license. Since October 2024, the UK courts have issued at least four interim license declarations. To date, the sole consequence imposed by the UK courts for an SEP holder’s refusal to grant an interim license has been a declaration that an SEP holder that does not enter into an interim license is an unwilling licensee in breach of its F/RAND commitment.
The positions taken by the UK courts have not gone unnoticed in the rest of Europe. In July 2025, the Munich Regional Court I noted that there was “no apparent objective reason” for an SEP holder to forgo global enforcement of its SEPs and accept a rate—interim or otherwise—set by the UK courts that would extend to other jurisdictions. The court emphasized that the SEP holder and implementer in that case were not “based in” the UK, and the UK was not “a particular sales market or production location” for the implementer.
That said, the German court found that the UK court’s recent interim license declarations were “not to be regarded as a threat to the decision-making authority of the German courts.” The court, however, left open the possibility that implementers could begin requesting different relief that would risk exerting undue influence on litigants before the German courts; should that happen, the court contemplated that “judicial measures would be necessary” to protect its jurisdiction.
Despite this German guidance, multiple implementers have requested that the UK courts go further than merely issuing an interim license declaration and instead order SEP holders, typically via specific performance, to offer an interim license to their SEPs on terms set by the UK court that may be adjusted after a full rate-setting trial. In response, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Munich Regional Court I adopted the “judicial measures” that may have been contemplated by the German court earlier this summer. These courts issued the world’s first anti-interim-license injunctions (AILIs). Both courts ordered the implementer in question to withdraw its UK applications for an interim license declaration and order. Both courts stated that violation of their orders would result in daily fines of €250,000 and, in Germany, could result in “administrative detention” of the implementer’s personnel.
There are two key takeaways from these AILIs:
- Declarations and Orders. The AILIs order the implementer to withdraw its request both for an order that the SEP holder offer an interim license and for a declaration that the SEP holder’s refusal to offer an interim license constitutes a breach of the F/RAND commitment. While the Munich Regional Court I in July said that the UK court’s prior interim license declarations were not a “threat” to the jurisdiction of foreign courts, the German court has now found that these declarations—which label unwillingness to enter into a global interim license a breach of F/RAND—deprive the SEP holder of its “opportunity to assert” either their UK or EU patent rights. The UPC echoed a similar rationale, finding that a declaration of noncompliance with F/RAND is “specifically aimed at preventing the pursuit of injunctive relief in other jurisdictions” and is designed to “compel[]” a nonconsenting SEP holder “to litigate their global patent dispute over a FRAND license exclusively before UK courts.”
- Specific Performance. The UPC and Munich Regional Court I expressed particular hostility to the idea that the UK courts could order an SEP holder to offer or enter an interim license or face the threat of “fines and coercive detention” as a penalty for noncompliance. The UPC characterized such an order as an “unacceptable” encroachment on the “fundamental rights” of SEP holders to enforce their EU patents at the UPC and on the “judicial sovereignty of other states.” The German court likewise noted that such an order would be tantamount to “infringement” of the SEP holder’s German patent rights because the order “would prevent the [SEP holder] from fully and successfully asserting the rights arising from the patents before German courts for a not inconsiderable period of time.”
Both SEP licensors and licensees should continue monitoring how requests for interim licenses are treated by courts in the UK and EU.
If you have any questions, or would like additional information, please contact one of the attorneys on our Antitrust team.
You can subscribe to future advisories and other Alston & Bird publications by completing our publications subscription form.