SEPs in China’s IP five-year plan; pool rate-setting case continues at UPC; Disney’s European injunction workaround; the ‘skilled person’ in the age of AI; plus much more
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.
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Last week brought the latest signal that SEPs – and patent pools – remain firmly on the agenda for China’s IP policymakers. The cabinet-equivalent State Council released its 15th Five-Year Plan for Intellectual Property Protection and Utilisation – a high-level blueprint for the country’s approach to IP value creation from 2026–2030.
The document calls for more home-grown patent pools to promote coordination and technology-sharing among domestic companies. It also proposes the creation of a national database of patents essential to global standards. Reporting by ip fray suggests that government-funded institutions have carried out large-scale essentiality analyses over a period of years, and that this data could play a role in the planned SEP database. China’s growing prominence in the global FRAND conversation remains one of the market’s major themes.
There were also new developments in a case testing the boundaries of FRAND rate-setting at the UPC. The Hague local division will continue to hear a FRAND counterclaim brought by Acer against Dolby and Vectis, a stay having been refused, while the UPC Court of Appeal considers whether the portion of the claim targeting the patent pool operator is permissible.
Elsewhere, Disney+ restored high-quality streaming services for some devices in Europe as it deals with the fallout from a UPC injunction; and Sisvel Head of Portfolio Management Sharaz Gill published an analysis of the thorny legal issues around AI-assisted inventions.
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
Pantech has settled 4G SEP cases against Lenovo, TCL, OnePlus and Tinno Mobile. Read more (ip fray)
Samsung and Netlist have ended a long-running dispute over memory patents, concluding a deal worth up to $897 million for Netlist. Read more (IAM)🔒. See also ip fray
IP management platform Anaqua has acquired Unified Patents. Read more (Anaqua press release)
Former Xiaomi licensing executive Xu Ran has launched an independent consultancy. Read more (PRIP Research)
Legal
The UPC has refused to stay a FRAND counterclaim brought by Acer against patent owner Dolby and pool operator Vectis. Read more (IAM) 🔒
Disney has re-enabled 4K UHD streaming for some but not all devices in 11 European markets after implementing a technical workaround to an InterDigital HEVC injunction. Read more (ip fray). See also IAM 🔒
InterDigital has revealed that it is facing abuse-of-dominance and FRAND determination claims from TCL in Shenzhen as well as a Brazilian antitrust action initiated by Hisense. Read more (ip fray) 🔒
Policy & Opinion
China’s State Council has published an IP five-year plan calling for the establishment of patent pools in key industries and the creation of a national database of standard essential patents. Read more (ip fray) 🔒. See also China IP Law Update
European regulators studying proportionality and injunctions should practise transparent, evidence-based policymaking and refrain from pre-determining court outcomes. Read more (Bowman Heiden on LinkedIn)
Strategy & Analysis
AI-assisted innovation will create complex inventorship issues likely to be dealt with by patent offices and courts as questions of evidence rather than of law. Read more (Sisvel Insights)
US district court patent lawsuits hit a 10-year high in 2025, but the first half of 2026 saw a precipitous year-on-year decline. Read more (MLex)🔒
The UK Supreme Court’s recent decision in favour of Tesla could impact SEP owners that opt to remain outside pools and license bilaterally. Read more (ip fray) 🔒
