Following the landmark global SEP judgment in Lenovo’s favor by the UK Court of Appeal on 28 February 2025, Ericsson has refused to accept the interim licence terms.
Following the landmark global SEP judgment in Lenovo’s favor by the UK Court of Appeal on 28 February 2025, Ericsson has refused to accept the interim licence terms. As a result, the English Court of Appeal has officially declared Ericsson to be in breach of its FRAND obligations and an unwilling licensor.
Further, in today’s High Court judgment, Meade J. decided on the scope of a 2011 Motorola license to Ericsson’s portfolio that Ericsson has refused to acknowledge. Meade J. held that the proper interpretation of the license is that a Motorola Mobility cellular handset is licensed if a reasonable person in the cellular handset development business would regard it as a commercially reasonable update or extension of an existing product.
Motorola Mobility, a Lenovo company, believes that the majority of its devices in question are indeed covered under this interpretation and therefore licensed. Ericsson has steadfastly ignored the contract language and refused to accept that any Motorola handsets released during the term of the license are licensed. Motorola Mobility looks forward to demonstrating the broad reach of the 2011 License coverage in the next stage of these proceedings.
Referring to the 2011 License in his judgment, Mr. Justice Meade held that Ericsson “has been rather uncooperative about engaging in the potential further determinations that would be involved on its construction”, and criticised Ericsson’s “unfortunate lack of productive engagement in aspects of this litigation in 2024/2025”. He found Ericsson’s limited admissions to be “unhelpful”.
