The EWHC’s Ex Parte Order Against InterDigital

As noted here two weeks ago, following reports on ip fray, the Mannheim Local Division of the Unified Patent Court and the Munich Regional Court both recently entered ex parte orders forbidding Amazon from pursuing a declaration of entitlement to an interim FRAND license from the High Court of England and Wales.  In response, it was reported a few days ago, Amazon obtained an ex parte order from the Patents Court for England and Wales, enjoining InterDigital (on an interim basis, prior to an inter partes hearing next week) from trying to prevent Amazon from pursuing “Final Relief” (a declaration of the terms of a FRAND license and possibly an order of specific performance) against InterDigital in its action in the EWHC.  Mr. Justice Meade explains his reasoning here, stating inter alia that Amazon is complying with the Munich and Mannheim orders not to pursue an interim license in the U.K.  Amazon’s concern, he writes, is rather that “InterDigital may be formulating a position or an application to either the UPC in Mannheim or the German national court in Munich (or both, as before, or some other court):  an application to restrain Amazon from carrying on its claim to the substantive, final RAND relief, which remains within these proceedings” (para. 13).  (The judgment also sets out, in para. 22 et seq., a concise summary of English law relating to the entry of antisuit injunctions, though Mr. Justice Meade characterizes his order as an anti-antisuit injunction.) ip fray suggests, however, that the Munich and (possibly) the Mannheim judgments might be understood as implicitly forbidding Amazon from pursuing final relief in the U.K. (see discussion here and here).  I’m not in a position to evaluate whether it is likely the Munich and Mannheim decisions would be so interpreted under German (or still-to-be-determined UPC) law; I take it that Mr. Justice Meade is proceeding on the assumption that those orders are limited to the explicit prohibition on interim licenses, and that he views his order as a prophylactic one to prevent InterDigital from obtaining an order, somewhere, forbidding Amazon from litigating the matter to final judgment in the U.K.  But how all of this will play out after upcoming inter partes hearings in the U.K. and Germany, I cannot begin to guess.