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Brazil and Colombia have become increasingly attractive venues for standard-essential patent (SEP) enforcement.

In the past 12 months, Brazil has become a particularly popular venue for major international patent infringement disputes. In some of those cases, such as ZTE v. Samsung, the courts also awarded the patentee a preliminary injunction (PI) (February 13, 2025 ip fray article). Last month, it was revealed that DivX and Hisense struck a video patent licensing agreement that was owed exclusively to a PI that had been awarded by the 6th Business Court of Rio de Janeiro (February 11, 2025 ip fray article). And, earlier in February, InterDigital also filed one of its three SEP lawsuits against Disney in the Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) State Court (February 3, 2025 ip fray article).

Meanwhile, Colombia was another jurisdiction (as well as Brazil) that Lenovo used to thwart Ericsson’s patent enforcement case against it – successfully. Ericsson had initially obtained a PI against Lenovo in Colombia in December 2023, but, in February 2024, the courts denied Ericsson an anti-antisuit injunction (February 1, 2024 ip fray article). Ericsson has since appealed against that decision.

In a podcast episode released yesterday, we had the chance to discuss the opportunities for both patentees and licensees in those Latin American jurisdictions with litigators from both Brazil and Colombia:

Carlos Aboim of the well-renowned Brazil-based Licks Attorneys and

Carlos Olarte of OlarteMoure, a veteran of patent prosecution and litigation in Colombia.

You can find the recording on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6dWQfnt5bKKqG8cciU4x3e?si=L7WwRoxxT-eVVsWu6YP_lA&nd=1&dlsi=aa2fe52c11e842dc