Free & breaking: Brazilian court enters preliminary injunction against Chinese automotive group Geely: same IP Bridge 4G patent made BYD settle

Context:

• Early on Tuesday, we wrote: “Any moment, a [Brazilian] PI [preliminary injunction] could come down against Geely [emphasis in original] as IP Bridge’s case is now being assessed by Judge Arthur Eduardo Magalhães Ferreira of the 5th Business Court of the Rio de Janeiro State Court.” Our article also discussed new Brazilian standard-essential patent (SEP) cases: Sun Patent Trust v. Great Wall Motor (a licensing firm suing another Chinese automaker) and Dolby v. Skyworth.

• We explained that the patent-in-suit, a 4G SEP originally obtained by Panasonic, had previously won IP Bridge a Brazilian PI against another Chinese automaker, BYD. When that PI was affirmed, BYD took an Avanci license to settle not only that case but also other pending litigation (September 25, 2025 ip fray article).

What’s new: A few hours ago, Judge Arthur Ferreira granted the PI, rdering Geely to refrain from contributing to, enabling, or facilitating any acts of commercial exploitation by third parties involving Brazilian patent PI 0908287‑5 (“Method of providing control signaling in communication systems, method of use in a communication system, base station, terminal, and computer readable medium for storing instructions”). The decision makes reference to, and quotes extensively from, last year’s IP Bridge v. BYD ruling by another judge of the same court, Judge Milena Angélica Drumond Morais Diz.

Direct impact:

• Geely must prove compliance within 10 days and faces a daily penalty of approximately US$4K, initially capped at approximately US$115K.

• Any attempts by Geely to get this PI lifted will face an elevated hurdle given the BYD precedent. IP Bridge also prevailed on its request for early production of evidence, and the neutral expert who has now been appointed, David Moura, is also the same as in the BYD case. Moreover, court rulings from the U.S. and Germany on the respective members of the same patent family also affirmed validity and essentiality.

• The injunction lists three Geely models (Geely EX5 Pro, Geely EX5 Max, and Geely EX2 Max) and two connectivity modules (Flaircomm Microelectronics’ FLC-WNP286 and GosuncnWelink’s GT573-LA), but covers any other Geely model (including those launched in the future) that would infringe in the same way.

• Certain Geely brands — Volvo (passenger cars, trucks, buses) and Polestar — have been Avanci-licensed for some time (even Avanci 5G: May 8, 2024 ip fray article) and are therefore not impacted.

Wider ramifications:

• Geely can try to settle through a bilateral license or an Avanci Vehicle license. The latter is what automakers typically prefer when they are at a juncture where further unlicensed use is not a viable option. In Geely’s case, pending cases brought by Nokia (July 22, 2025 ip fray article) in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Munich I Regional Court will also lead to decisions this year. For example, the UPC’s Mannheim Local Division (LD) has recently scheduled a trial for November 17 and 18, 2026, and Munich will likely decide sooner. Sun Patent Trust sued in the Hamburg LD late last year (December 10, 2025 ip fray article).

• While Chinese automakers were initially a bit hesitant to take cellular SEP licenses, there has been some momentum lately. An Ericsson slide deck mentioned four new Chinese automotive license deals through Avanci in the fourth quarter of 2025 (and those were not Avanci’s first Chinese deals). Nokia has five bilateral agreements with (unnamed) Chinese car makers in place (January 20, 2026 ip fray article).

• The latest ultra-high-profile Brazilian patent enforcement action is Dolby v. Snap (i.e., Snapchat) (March 24, 2026 ip fray article).

• Separately, we have obtained a copy of a decision in a non-automotive SEP case from a São Paulo-based judge and are still analyzing it. We will follow up shortly on that one. At first sight it appears balanced and at this stage of the analysis we have not identified a clear and present danger of SEP enforcement in Brazil being weakened.

• Brazil’s competition regulator has recently raised questions about Lenovo subsidiary Motorola Mobility’s pursuit of a global FRAND ruling by the High Court of Justice for England & Wales (March 7, 2026 ip fray article). A few hours ago, Lenovo/Motorola submitted its answers to Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), but has redacted them to the maximum extent, shedding no light on how they were seeking to explain their attempt to leverage extraterritorial overreach against Ericsson.

For more details, please read the article.