Welcome to the latest edition of the Sisvel Insights weekly round-up, aggregating news stories, analyses and data points affecting the SEP world that have caught our eye over the past seven days.

** Click here to get this newsletter delivered directly to your inbox every Monday **

South Korean R&D lab Wilus, a licensor in the Sisvel Wi-Fi Multimode pool, announced last week that it has launched legal action against Amazon at the Munich I Regional Court in Germany.

The firm is asserting the same patent that was central to its case against ASUS, which ended with the Taiwanese company becoming a Multimode pool licensee earlier this year. The decision to file suit was taken after four years of efforts to conclude an amicable licensing agreement.

“We always seek to reach licensing agreements without litigation, but maintaining a level playing field requires us to act when a company of Amazon’s size and scope fails to obtain rights that we have licensed so widely to the industry,” says Wilus founder and CEO Jin Sam Kwak. “The royalties generated by our SEP portfolios, including through the Sisvel Wi-Fi Multimode pool, are critical to supporting our ongoing R&D activities in wireless technologies.”

Elsewhere, a Korean court confirmed a jail sentence imposed on former Samsung IP head Ahn Seung-ho for trade secret theft in connection with a collapsed patent infringement lawsuit that an NPE he had founded brought against his former employer in the US.

Meanwhile, as the debate about proportionality heats up in Europe, a new paper argued that it is based on flawed data and questionable assumptions about the issue. There was news, too, that Transsion has asked the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court to determine a global FRAND rate for InterDigital's cellular SEPs.

Please note that the inclusion of a piece in the list below does not signify agreement with what is stated in the linked article – just that we believe it is of interest and worth flagging.

Market

Qualcomm's licensing earnings for FY 2026 held steady from the previous year at $5.56 billion. Read more (Qualcomm earnings release). See also IAM🔒

UPC litigation between Samsung and ZTE has been terminated, suggesting that the pair have reached a settlement in their long running, multi-jurisdictional 5G licensing dispute. Read more (JUVE Patent)

Legal

Wilus has asserted a Wi-Fi 6 patent against Amazon in Germany. Read more (Wilus press release). See also ip fray and IAM 🔒

A three-year prison term imposed on a former head of IP at Samsung for trade secret theft has been confirmed by the Seoul High Court Criminal Division. Read more (ip fray)

Transsion has asked the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court to determine global FRAND rates for InterDigital’s cellular SEPs. Read more (IAM)🔒

A ruling in favour of ASUS in its dispute with Ericsson by the UPC's Milan Local Division represents the first-ever successful FRAND defence at the court. Read more (ip fray)

Acacia affiliate Atlas Global Technologies has filed Wi-Fi SEP litigation against Nintendo in the United States and Europe. Read more (ip fray)🔒

DAZN is facing new UPC and German litigation related to HEVC patents from Velos Media. Read more (ip fray)🔒

The Korea Fair Trade Commission is investigating InterDigital based on a complaint from TCL, the US company has disclosed. Read more (IAM)🔒

Policy & Opinion

A renewed push for EU SEP regulation could fracture the global licensing market, suggests Sisvel's Matteo Sabattini. Read more (MLex)🔒

Lobby group the Streaming Industry Alliance has decried “abuse” of SEPs in an open letter to patent policymakers in the United States and Europe. Read more (open letter). See also IP Watchdog, ip fray and IAM🔒

Democrats are set to control IP subcommittees in both houses of Congress after the US midterm elections. Read more (IAM)🔒

The CNIPA plans to pilot a new programme for examining SEPs and will continue to explore the creation of a standards-related patent database. Read more (ip fray)🔒. See also MLex🔒

Strategy & Analysis

The current debate on proportionality in the issuance of injunctions by EU courts in patent cases is being driven by incomplete data and false assumptions. To get a true picture, different questions must be asked. Read more (Kluwer Patent Blog)

Treating successive video codecs as nothing more than a new generation of the same technology is a fundamental error – especially when it comes to patent licensing. Read more (Sisvel Insights)

Since 2021, about half of the patent filings by six major automakers have focused on software and vehicle-control technology, up from roughly one-third previously. Read more (Nixon Peabody Insights)

A new ruling suggests that a consensus may be forming among UPC judges over the legal test that should be applied to determine whether a patent has been infringed by equivalence. Read more (Out-Law)