In the nearly six years since the UK Supreme Court's August 2020 judgment in Unwired Planet v Huawei, the SEP landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation. From appeals on royalty rates in InterDigital v Lenovo and Optis v Apple to the emergence of court-determined interim licences and ongoing debates about national court jurisdiction.
In the first of our Tech Takes Monthly series, this article will take a look at the key procedural and remedial developments in the SEP/FRAND space and the important trends that have emerged.
FRAND trials expedited (and heard first)
The UK court has been increasingly willing to expedite FRAND proceedings and hear FRAND matters before technical trials. This has largely been motivated by final injunction risks in parallel foreign proceedings. Examples where FRAND trials have been expedited include Panasonic v Xiaomi/Oppo ([2024] EWCA Civ 1143), Alcatel/Nokia v Amazon ([2025] EWCA Civ 43) and Lenovo v Ericsson ([2025] EWCA Civ 182), among others. It is now possible for a FRAND trial to be listed in the UK within around 12 months of the proceedings being issued. An example is Amazon v InterDigital, which commenced in late August 2025, with the FRAND trial due to be heard in September 2026.
Royalties for past sales and interest
In July 2024 the Court of Appeal in InterDigital v Lenovo ([2024] EWCA Civ 743) affirmed the High Court's finding that the FRAND licence in that case should cover payment for all past sales dating back to when the patent was first used. Additionally, interest on such past sales should also be payable.
The Court of Appeal agreed with Mellor J at first instance, that limitation periods had "no role" to play in the assessment of FRAND terms in this case ([2023] EWHC 539 (Pat), §556), finding that a willing licensee would "not try to benefit from delay" and would therefore pay for all past units (HC, §529). Interest should be payable on such royalties "to reflect the time value of money" as this is what willing parties would agree (HC, §519). The Court of Appeal's concern was that the application of limitation periods may create "an incentive for implementers to delay" (CoA, §193). Arnold LJ did, however, accept that settled industry practice of releasing sales over six years old when negotiating licences "would be relevant to what is FRAND", but such practice was not established on the evidence at first instance in this case (CoA, §198).
Implementer-led FRAND claims
Following Unwired Planet, courts have accepted that implementers can commence UK proceedings to obtain FRAND terms. Arnold LJ noted in Panasonic v Xiaomi that "in two recent cases, the FRAND terms determined by the Patents Court were significantly closer to those offered by the implementers than to those sought by the SEP holders" (CoA, §15), leading to a trend of implementers commencing proceedings rather than waiting to be sued.
Such SEP/FRAND cases commenced by implementers have included Lenovo v InterDigital (September 2023), Lenovo v Ericsson (October 2023), Alcatel/Nokia v Amazon (October 2023), Tesla v Avanci and InterDigital (December 2023), Acer v Nokia (June 2025), Hisense v Nokia (June 2025), ASUS v Nokia (July 2025), Amazon v InterDigital (August 2025) and Xiaomi v ASUS and Innovative Sonic (September 2025) and Warner Brothers v Nokia (November 2025).
Interim licence declarations
In the last couple of years, a new form of interim relief has emerged in the UK courts in the SEP/FRAND space; declaratory relief in the form of the 'interim licence'.
Previously, the UK court had only gone as far as to grant final relief by determining the rates of a full and final FRAND licence. This could either be accepted or rejected by an implementer, with rejection leading to exclusion from the UK market. The interim licence declaration, however, is interim declaratory relief intended to 'hold the ring' pending the outcome of that final FRAND determination, particularly where there are PIs or final injunction risks in parallel foreign proceedings.
The first claim for interim licence declarations was brought by Lenovo against InterDigital in late 2023, but was dismissed at first instance. It wasn't until almost a year later that the first interim licence declaration was granted by the Court of Appeal in Panasonic v Xiaomi, following a finding that a SEP holder pursuing foreign injunctions, whilst having already given undertakings to the UK court to be bound by that court's determination of FRAND, was in breach of good-faith obligations to ETSI.
The Court of Appeal subsequently found in Alcatel/Nokia v Amazon that Amazon had a real prospect of success in arguing Panasonic was legally indistinguishable, permitting Amazon to amend its pleadings and advance its request for interim licence declarations. This was despite the fact that Alcatel had only commenced proceedings relating to non-essential patents (which did not engage FRAND), with Amazon having put SEPs in issue responsively. Interim licence declarations were also granted by the Court of Appeal in Lenovo v Ericsson, despite Ericsson not commencing UK proceedings or providing undertakings to the UK court.
Interim licence declarations were revisited by the Court of Appeal in Samsung v ZTE ([2025] EWCA Civ 1383), a case in which both parties agreed that an interim licence should be granted, albeit disagreeing on the appropriate forum to determine final FRAND terms. Samsung argued for the UK, whilst ZTE argued the terms should be determined by the Chinese court of Chongqing. Ultimately the Court of Appeal held that preferring one forum over another was not grounds to find that ZTE was acting in bad faith and overturned the first instance court's decision to grant interim licence declarations.
The treatment of interim licences has also been considered in Amazon v InterDigital, Acer v Nokia, Hisense v Nokia and ASUS v Nokia. However, some decisions have attracted controversy. In Amazon v InterDigital, anti-suit injunctions, to countersuit the UK interim licence declarations, were granted in the UPC and German courts, raising questions over jurisdiction and comity. There are also open questions around whether interim licences, in the context of video codec SEPs declared essential to the ITU standards, subject to Swiss law, should be enforced via an order for specific performance.
Conclusion
Developments surveyed in this article reveal a UK SEP/FRAND landscape that has continued to evolve beyond the foundational principles established in Unwired Planet. The procedural innovations – expedited FRAND trials, interim licence declarations and implementer-led actions – demonstrate the rapidly changing terrain of SEP/FRAND litigation.
As case law continues to develop, the UK courts face the delicate task of maintaining their position as a leading forum for FRAND disputes whilst navigating the increasingly complex web of parallel proceedings and competing jurisdictional claims that characterise modern SEP litigation.
Part two of this article will examine the substantive developments in royalty rate determination and the evolving approaches to the assessment of FRAND, as well as new targets that are becoming the subject of FRAND litigation.
