Masabumi Suzuki has posted a paper on ssrn titled Standard Essential Patent Disputes in Japan: From Apple v. Samsung to Pantech and the Future of SEP Dispute Resolution. Here is a link to the paper, and here is the abstract:
After more than a decade of silence following the 2014 IP High Court Grand Panel decisions, Japanese courts issued three SEP judgments in 2025, all arising from suits by Pantech. This paper analyzes the Tokyo District Court's Pantech v. Google I — Japan's first case where an injunction was granted on an SEP — arguing its abuse-of-rights reasoning is unpersuasive: it offers no normative standard for good-faith FRAND negotiation, and barely evaluates the patentee's own conduct, unlike the more balanced Osaka judgment in Pantech v. Google II. It also covers Pantech v. ASUS JAPAN's FRAND royalty calculation. The paper then examines the Tokyo District Court's 2026 "Procedures" that push early settlement on global FRAND terms in litigation and initiate a judicial mediation system. It concludes that while this pragmatic turn suits SEPs' inherently global nature, more predictability about Japanese courts' position on FRAND negotiation is needed for Japan to become an attractive forum for SEP disputes.
This is an essential paper, if you want to understand the recent district court decisions in Tokyo and Osaka concerning SEPs—what they say, how they compare to the 2014 Apple v. Samsung decisions, what the possible weak spots are in the courts’ analyses, and what questions remain open—as well as how court-supervised settlement negotiations enter into the mix.
For previous discussion on this blog of the recent decisions discussed in Professor Suzuki's article, see here and here.
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