In brief
- Decisions of a court in one jurisdiction often influence how the parties behave in another jurisdiction, and may indeed finally resolve the issues in dispute in that other jurisdiction. Principles of "issue estoppel" have been developed over many years in multiple jurisdictions for identifying when that happens.
- In this dispute, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) granted an injunction prohibiting Amazon from asking any foreign court for final (F)RAND relief that might influence how InterDigital might act in the UPC proceedings. The injunction prohibits Amazon from asking a UK court for relief that even InterDigital accepts the UK Court has jurisdiction to grant.
- According to the UPC's reasoning, a court in one jurisdiction may grant orders identifying the terms of an appropriate global (F)RAND licence and require the parties to enter into such a licence, but such orders cannot be enforceable if the threat of taking steps to enforce the orders (even in the court granting them) might impact parallel patent infringement proceedings in another jurisdiction.
- If the UPC is right that rate setting proceedings in one jurisdiction should not have any extra-territorial effect whatsoever, then this means country-by-country patent and (F)RAND litigation is required – a position that has widely been accepted as 'madness' (including by the UK Supreme Court in Unwired Planet).
Background
In early September 2025 Amazon commenced patent revocation and (F)RAND proceedings against InterDigital in the UK Patents Court. It also indicated that it intended to make an application for a global interim licence of InterDigital's standard essential patents (SEPs).
On 30 September 2025 InterDigital made an urgent without notice application to the UPC Local Division in Mannheim for an "anti-interim licence injunction", prohibiting Amazon from making an application in the UK proceedings for an interim licence. InterDigital did not want the UK court to make declarations regarding an interim licence because those declarations could interfere in claims of patent infringement that it had freshly commenced in the UPC. For example, if InterDigital refused to offer Amazon an interim licence, then Amazon could argue in the UPC proceedings that it was not acting as a willing licensor. That could reduce InterDigital's negotiation leverage.
The UPC granted that injunction (30 September Order). Since it affected what Amazon could do in the UK proceedings, its scope was queried by the UK court. For example, did the order prohibit Amazon from pursuing a final rate setting decision by the UK court?
InterDigital initially agreed that the UPC's "anti-interim licence" injunction did not have such an effect. It had not intentionally applied for an anti-suit injunction that would limit what kind of final relief Amazon could seek in the UK proceedings. However, it subsequently indicated a change of mind or a desire to obtain an injunction from the UPC prohibiting Amazon from pursuing a final rate setting decision in the UK. Amazon therefore made its own urgent without notice application in the UK court for an injunction prohibiting Amazon from asking the UPC to expand the existing injunction or grant a new one prohibiting it from pursuing final relief in the UK.
De-escalation
Meade J granted a temporary anti-anti-suit injunction (AASI) for the purpose of preserving the integrity of the UK proceedings, then convened a hearing (which took place on 25 November) to determine how to proceed. That hearing involved discussion of the effect of the AASI, the extra-territorial effect of any final rate setting decision the UK court might make, and comity.
In his subsequent judgment, Meade J observed:
I have made clear and Amazon accepts that InterDigital can argue to the UPC or the German court that any final RAND relief in the UK is ineffective there … . InterDigital can bring and continue infringement claims. It can bring overlapping rate-setting claims if it wants.
… The effect of a UK-determined licence in other courts abroad, however, may or may not be extra-territorial, depending on the decisions of those courts where the licence is sought to be deployed. It is up to those courts as explained above.
It would be entirely up to the UPC and German courts to decide what effect the UK decision would have on the proceedings before them. And, of course, it works the other way too:
"If a foreign court finally and properly decided global (F)RAND terms between two litigants over which it had jurisdiction prior to a UK court setting out to do the same, I cannot see anything wrong with the litigant who had succeeded in the foreign court at least arguing (it might succeed or fail) that the foreign court's decision should be given effect here by res judicata or cause of action or issue estoppel."
A full hearing of InterDigital's substantive challenge to the UK's (F)RAND jurisdiction took place on 3 and 4 December 2025 and, on 19 December, Meade J rejected it in a carefully reasoned judgment.
Escalation
The UPC presiding judge (Judge Peter Tochterman) was clearly dissatisfied with this outcome.
In a judgment published on 22 December 2025, he declared that an interim licence declaration by the UK court would violate the ordre public of the EU, making it null and void and unenforceable in any UPC contracting member state. (See UPC-CFI-0000936/2025 | Unified Patent Court.)
Further, notwithstanding Meade J's heavy criticism of the submissions and evidence presented to the UPC to obtain the 30 September Order, and notwithstanding that InterDigital had not asked for an injunction touching final relief, Judge Tochterman "clarified" that the order also prohibited Amazon from seeking any final (F)RAND relief that could influence InterDigital's conduct of the UPC proceedings.
In the context of assessing an appropriate penalty if Amazon did pursue final relief in the UK that might have that effect, the UPC made various observations about interim licence declarations and the effect of a final rate setting decision by the UK court.
These observations included:
- If an SEP owner refused to respect an interim licence declaration by the UK court it would give the impression of wrongdoing, which was not fair to the SEP owner.
- This spill over effect of an interim licence was "actually a far-reaching intrusion into the legal order of a different territory, which violates comity".
- If the UK court ordered InterDigital to provide Amazon a global licence on terms that it considered to be (F)RAND, InterDigital could either provide the licence or refuse. If it did not provide the licence, it may be in contempt; if it did provide the licence, then continuation of patent infringement proceedings in the UPC might comprise a breach of the licence, giving rise to a liability to pay damages. The possibility of being found liable by a UK court for damages or being found by a UK court to be in contempt would deter InterDigital from pursuing patent infringement proceedings in the UPC. Accordingly, by continuing the UK proceedings Amazon "may be in breach of [the 30 September Order] already depending on the future effects of their application."
- Amazon was free to pursue final relief in the UK, but only if "no negative consequences whatsoever arise for [InterDigital] if they chose not to accept the outcome and enforce their European patents in relation to UPCA contracting member states and argue that the outcome is not binding on them with regard to the territories of the UPCA contracting member states."
It then set a maximum penalty for failure to comply with its 30 September Order at €50 million, with €500,000 payable for each additional day of non-compliance.
After becoming aware of a hearing on 4 February, in which Meade J considered what consequential orders should follow from his rejection of InterDigital's jurisdiction challenge, the UPC issued a further decision on 11 February emphasising that the scope of the 30 September Order had not changed over time and "clearly also affects the so-called Final relief sought before the UK court".
In response to the threat of penalties, on 25 February Amazon sent an email to the UPC stating that "while Amazon reserves all of its rights, for the avoidance of doubt, Amazon does not presently seek damages arising from any breach by InterDigital of its RAND Commitment".
However, Amazon's email caused the opposite of its intended effect, failing to assuage the UPC. Judge Tochterman issued a further order, declaring that it "may amount to a breach of the [30 September Order] if Amazon intends to reserve its rights … to sue InterDigital for damages in the proceedings before the UK courts" if Amazon thought that continuation of rate setting proceedings in the UPC involved a breach of any (F)RAND licence entered into by the parties pursuant to a UK court order. In other words, the UPC considered that Amazon may have already breached the AASI, not because of any of its acts or omissions, but because of what it was thinking. Judge Tochterman scheduled a further hearing for 27 February, and demanded that Amazon take a clear, unambiguous and unrestricted position at that hearing.
At the hearing on 27 February Judge Tochterman found that Amazon had in fact breached the 30 September Order, but did not publish reasons for this finding. On pain of contempt and fines in the tens of millions of euros, Amazon was required to make a declaration to Meade J, limiting the type of final relief it might seek in the UK proceeding.
Outcome?
Meade J received that declaration in a hearing on 5 March, and issued a carefully reasoned judgment on the same day because he considered it "important for actual and potential litigants in this complex field to understand what has happened and why".
Since then, there have been two more orders from the UPC, one on 9 March and one on 25 March. Ultimately, Amazon has done what Judge Tochterman wanted it to do (not what InterDigital wanted it to do), namely abandon any claim to final relief in the UK court that might in future give it a claim that InterDigital was liable for damage caused by continuing UPC infringement proceedings in the face of a prior determination by the UK court regarding the terms of a global (F)RAND licence.
Concluding thoughts
The position taken by the UPC is unbalanced. It also contrasts with the position taken by the CJEU regarding the ability of EU member state courts to rule on issues concerning infringement and validity of foreign patents in Electrolux v BSH (see our article here) and which the UPC has followed.
The UPC's reasons for its injunction against Amazon are agnostic regarding the jurisdiction in which existing patent revocation and rate setting proceedings may be on foot. Its approach may therefore be perceived as an open invitation to SEP owners involved in (F)RAND proceedings elsewhere (e.g. China) that are concerned about their outcome to seek an injunction from the UPC prohibiting the implementer from seeking relief that would otherwise be granted.
Indeed, the UPC's approach may encourage and justify parties commencing rate setting proceedings in another jurisdiction to contemporaneously apply for an urgent without notice anti-suit injunction prohibiting the defendant (whether SEP owner or implementer) approaching the UPC for orders that would interfere with its ability to conduct those rate setting proceedings in accordance with the law and procedure of the court seized.
Amazon has appealed from the UPC's 30 September Order. Oral proceedings have been scheduled for 28 May 2026. (See UPC-COA-0000936/2025 | Unified Patent Court.)