An Article by John Richards regarding the UK Supreme Court Decision in the Cases of Unwired Planet v. Huawei and Huawei v. Conversant is Now Available in the Education Center

On August 26, 2020, the United Kingdom Supreme Court handed down its unanimous combined decision in the cases of Unwired Planet v. Huawei and Huawei v. Conversant. Both cases involved questions of:

1. Whether the contracts entered into by those who had participated in standards setting by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and agreed to license any standards essential patents (SEPs) they held on Fair Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms contemplated such FRAND terms being set out on a global basis;
2. Whether the FRAND requirement consisted of separate fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory components or whether the term was a single unitary obligation;
3. The role of competition law relating to abuses of a dominant position in deciding disputes relating to SEPs and in particular the meaning of the European Court of Justice decision in ZTE v, Huawei; and
4. Whether it was equitable to grant injunctions against Huawei when it had agreed that it would accept the court’s determination of what were FRAND terms for the UK patents in question but not for the rest of the world.

To read more about this case, please see the article available in our Education Center.