FRAND Interim Licensing – Where Are The Limits?

Over the last year the UK Court of Appeal has been developing a new line of case law in the FRAND space – creating, for the first time, 'interim licences'. The principle that these decisions establish is that an implementer can ask the UK court to declare interim licensing terms, pending a determination by the UK court of full FRAND licence terms. If the SEP holder refuses to enter into the interim licence they risk being declared an unwilling licensor.

Interim licences

The first interim licensing decision arose in Panasonic Holdings Corporation v Xiaomi Technology UK Limited [2024] EWCA Civ 1143(which we covered here) and the circumstances in which interim licences are available was expanded in Lenovo v Ericsson [2025] EWCA Civ 182 (which we covered here). In both of these cases there was parallel litigation proceeding between the parties across multiple jurisdictions. The implementers had agreed to be bound by UK court determined FRAND terms but there remained