Photo: Huawei

On December 18, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Europe announced the ruling of the case Huawei v. Netgear, which granted Huawei an injunction against Netgear in seven countries in EU, for Netgear was ruled to have infringed Huawei’s Wi-Fi 6 patent in EU.

The involved patent in dispute in the case “a method and apparatus for transmitting wireless local area network information”, is a standard-essential patent (SEP) related to Wi-Fi 6 technology owned by Huawei. Priorly, many companies are already licensed to Huawei’s Wi-Fi 6 standard-essential patents (SEPs), typically without prior litigation Netgear is an outlier in certain ways. According to information disclosed on the internet, it is the UPC’s second SEP injunction over a FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory license terms) defense, and the first one of commercial relevance as the other dispute had practically settled out already. The injunction covers the three largest UPC member states (Germany, France and Italy) as well as Belgium, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

There are still several pending cases between Huawei and Netgear global-wide. Another patent case between Huawei and Netgear pending in Germany is scheduled a coming decision for January 9, 2025, and based on earlier discussion in open court, this SEP in dispute by Huawei is likely to be deemed valid and infringed. 

And earlier in February this year, Netgear started a geopolitically-charged U.S. litigation in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, which Huawei has asked the court to throw out in part, and in anticipation of a loss in the UPC and other injunctions, Netgear has asked the U.S. court for an anti-suit injunction and, as a fallback, an interim license. This is the first-ever anti-suit attack on the UPC as well as the first-ever request for an interim license in a SEP case to have been filed with a U.S. court. The hearing was supposed to take place on January 24, 2025, however, the latest development of the case is that Netgear filed a motion to withdraw its Anti-Enforcement Injunction (AEI) in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on December 23, 2024. 

Netgear’s conduct should be related to the Anti-Anti-Suit-Injunction (AASI) issued by Munich Chamber of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the First District Court of Munich in Germany, as well as the AASI issued by Supreme People’s Court in China, which should be the first ever AASI decision made by the country. These AASIs should be regarded as responses to Netgear's earlier requests in the U.S Court. 

This withdrawal by Netgear avoids a dispute between U.S., European and Chinese courts on the international issue of jurisdiction, and it also defuses the red lines and penalties outlined in China's first AASI ruling. For the subsequent behaviors by both companies, it is unclear whether there will be an upcoming settlement.

Moreover, Netgear’s request for a temporary license issued by court in the U.S. has been persisted.