Enrico Bonadio and Arjun Solanki have just published The emergence of FRAND interim licences, 47 EIPR 592 (2025). The article provides an overview of the English courts' practice, as developed over the past year, of granting declarations concerning interim FRAND licenses, from Panasonic v. Xiaomi though Samsung v. ZTE. It also offers some arguments in defense of the practice, including some analogous practices elsewhere--though as I noted earlier this week, the recent decisions of the Mannheim Local Division of the UPC and of the Munich Regional Court, which came down too late for discussion in the article, would seem to present a substantial obstacle for the continued use of such declarations in FRAND litigation. Anyway, here is the abstract (the paper itself can be found on Westlaw, if you don't have a hard-copy subscription to EIPR):
This article analyses the emergence of FRAND interim licences in UK law, a judicial innovation addressing disputes over standard-essential patents (SEPs) during protracted negotiations or litigation. Reviewing landmark cases, i.e. Panasonic v Xiaomi, Alcatel Lucent v Amazon, Lenovo v Ericsson, and Samsung v ZTE, it explains how interim licences balance the interests of SEP holders and implementers by enabling continued technology use with provisional royalties, subject to retroactive adjustment. The study highlights the mechanism’s grounding in good faith obligations, its distinction from anti-suit injunctions, analogies in other legal fields, and its potential to influence global FRAND policy and standard-setting practices.
Bonadio and Solanki also have another paper, coauthored with Vansh Tayal, in the same issue, titled Brazilian antitrust authority's decision on SEP licensing practices, 47 EIPR 635 (2025), discussing a recent investigation launched by Brazil's competition authority into Ericsson's FRAND licensing practices.
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