1) Nokia sues Chinese automaker Geely in UPC, Germany over 5G SEPs

Nokia has signed amicable bilateral deals with two Chinese automakers to date, but Geely’s rejection of FRAND patent licensing agreement offers has left the company “no choice” but to pursue legal action, Nokia said in a statement today.

Geely also owns Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus.

2) Federal judge throws out Roku’s FRAND and non-infringement DJ complaint against Access Advance, Dolby, Sun Patent Trust

Roku is facing patent infringement lawsuits by Access Advance licensors and tried to attack the pool administrator with a U.S. antitrust case, which has now been thrown out by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

Note:  We will follow up later today with an article on an announcement that Access Advance made regarding the opportunity to secure the current terms until 2030 by taking a license before the end of this year. In that context, we will also comment on the fact that Via Licensing Alliance (Via LA), like Access Advance, makes regional rates available. 

3) LinkedIn post: Sisvel signs up Cisco, a company known to engage in a lot of advocacy regarding FRAND rates

This is the most significant licensing announcement by Sisvel in years, and it speaks to the strength of the patents in their WiFi 6 pool, particularly Huawei's (by far the leading licensor).

4) IP people often “hide in their corner”: Atos IP head on the importance of visibility in boosting C-suite support, budgets

In this interview, Yann Dietrich discusses how much Atos’s perception of IP has changed since he first joined, how IP is not a “legal” question but a “business model” question, and the increasing importance of trade secrets.

5) PDF: WIPO arbitration panel largely overturns other body's decision on compatibility of Chinese antisuit injunctions with the Treaty on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property rights (TRIPS)

The decision was released yesterday and is a turnaround for the EU's complaint against China, but

• it will not really be enforceable (Chinese courts can still do what they want, and there's nothing the EU can do) and
• the EU is being hypocritical because some of its own courts engage in jurisdictional overreach, just that EU courts force implementers to take global patent licenses (thereby also with respect to China).

We may comment on this on some other occasion, but other news is more important at the moment.

6) LinkedIn post: ip fray has more than 8,000 followers

We wish to thank all of you for your support: 8K followers and ip fray was launched only 19 months ago from tomorrow (December 23, 2023: 1.5 years + 1 month - 1 day ago).

If IP-specialized websites started on LinkedIn many years before us, including one that started as a print publication more than 20 years earlier, are above 10K, no problem:

1. We'll get there way faster, and old accounts inevitably have a higher percentage of inactive or no longer interested followers than younger ones.

2. Our goal is to be #1 on UPC and SEPs, and we're taking an increasing interest in pharma patent litigation. We'll have an announcement to make about that in September.

7) ip fray mentioned by German business weekly Wirtschaftswoche in connection with SAP v. Celonis UPC complaint

(German-language article)