SEP Essentials

Recently, I have been focusing on why competition law authorities should pay more attention to standard setting, SEP licensing, SEP litigation, and SEP sales.  Well, it turns out that the Brazilian competition authority has decided to do just that.  Brazil is a jurisdiction that grants (near) automatic injunctions, including preliminary injunctions, for patent infringement, regardless of whether the patent is a SEP.  Brazil also is the largest market in South America for cert

One of the excuses used by Germany’s Federal Court of Justice in the VoiceAgeEVS v. HMD  case to justify an injunction was its finding that injunctions are necessary to encourage implementers to take a license.  But SEP licensing   is not a goal of standard development .   Let me say that again – SEP licensing is not a goal of standard development.   SEP licensing by those who participate in the development of a standard is tolerated only because it is believed to support one

The European Commission (“EC”) Study focused on European Courts’ “inconsistency” in the application of the Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (“IPRED”) and advocated a “wait and see” “soft law” approach to solving the problem.  See, "Inconsistency" - Europe Dithers Some More ).  But, this “inconsistency” is not a failure to understand how to apply the IPRED properly but a willful refusal to follow it based on German and German-influenced Unified Pate

You can find my first post on the “Follow-up study on the application of the Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights” (“ EC Study ”) here: "Inconsistency" - Europe Dithers Some More .  I wanted to take another look at the EC Study since there is so much to unpack in its 132 pages (not to mention the multiple attachments).  This post focuses on patent assertion entities (PAEs) and their relationship to other identified problems.  The EC Study defines PAEs

The European Commission just released its “Follow-up study on the application of the Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights” (which you can find here: EC Study ) (“EC Study”).  The Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (“IPRED”) “established a framework of measures, procedures, and remedies for the civil enforcement of IP rights”.    Among other reforms, it was intended to bring proportionality and balance to the conside

Since I have been so focused of late on Huawei’s conduct in the IEEE, I noticed two recent Huawei deals.  They have been treated as unrelated, but I wonder whether they are, in fact, part and parcel of Huawei’s SEP strategy.  Hence my title: pirates on the move.  1. Nokia acquires Wi-Fi 7 related patents from Huawei .  Buried in an announcement from Nokia that was posted on December 11, 2025 ( New Wi-Fi licensing deals in automotive | Nokia ) is this statement: “In additio