Application Of Injunctions In Foreign Standard Essential Patent Disputes

When the products related to standard essential patents become global products,the disputes between the product manufacturer and the right holder of standard essential patents concerning patent licensing and its fees will become global disputes,and international parallel litigation will inevitably increase.In order to safeguard judicial sovereignty and the interests of its own parties,sovereign states must issue injunction.Since the first injunction was issued in 2020,China has successively issued injunctions in standardised essential patent disputes between Xiaomi and InterDigital Inc.,OPPO and Sharp Corp.,and Samsung and Ericsson.However,the development time of the system of injunction in our country is still short,so the courts in our country need to consider which factors when issuing the injunction are still very unclear,which also leads to the courts in our country,easily get into passive situation when dealing with the standard necessary patent disputes.In December 2022,the EU filed a complaint to the WTO against the injunction issued by the Chinese court,requiring the WTO Dispute Settlement Body to apply for the establishment of a panel to rule that the injunction issued by the Chinese court violates its treaty obligations.The EU’s complaint,though,has no legal basis or principled basis.But in order to cope with international challenges,it is urgent to study the factors of international general principles applied in issuing injunctions in standard essential patent disputes,and to summarize the experience of Chinese courts in dealing with standard essential patent disputes and developing injunctions system.It is generally believed that the principle of international comity,the principle of inconvenient court and the principle of first litigated court are the three international general principles that should be adhered to in issuing injunctions.Chinese courts have strictly adhered to the aforementioned three basic principles in recent cases of standard necessary patent disputes,so it is not inappropriate to issue injunctions.Based on the principle of international comittance,the principle of inconvenient court and the principle of first litigated court,combined with the specific situation of disputes over standard essential patent injunctions,and based on the existing cases of standard essential patent injunctions at home and abroad,this paper analyzes the factors for the application of the international general principle of issuing injunctions in foreign standard essential patent disputes.