UK High Court Bars InterDigital from Blocking Final FRAND Ruling in Amazon Case

Over the past year, UK courts have issued a series of rulings requiring standard essential patent (SEP) owners to offer interim licenses in fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) cases, also holding that a SEP owner will be deemed unwilling if it refuses to do so. This has prompted jurisdictional pushback in other SEP venues: In late September, Germany’s Munich I Regional Court and the Mannheim Local Division (Mannheim LD) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) issued the first-ever anti-interim-license injunctions (AILIs) barring the pursuit of such relief in a UK case filed by Amazon against InterDigital, Inc. Now, the UK High Court has fired back. After issuing a case management order that criticized InterDigital for taking contradictory positions on the urgency posed by the UK proceedings in order to win those AILIs, the court has issued an order enjoining the patent owner from preventing Amazon from pursuing its remaining claim for a final FRAND determination.