First, here’s the photo that we received from a reliable source. It was taken in the lobby of the Frankfurt Regional Court and shows that a Samsung complaint against ZTE based on antitrust law (abuse of dominant market position by refusal to grant license) was filed on December 20, 2024. The court decided, instead of regular service of process under the Hague Convention, to notify ZTE by means of that publicly accessible notice at the courthouse, which has been hanging there on a magnetic pinwall since January 20, 2025:
The Brazilian PI resulted from a complaint by ZTE that was filed on January 15, 2025. Apparently Samsung had the chance to defend itself.
There is a daily fine of 50,000 reais, which amounts to approximately US$8,600, for any further infringement.
The PI order was signed by Deputy Judge Elisabete da Silva Franco. ZTE was represented by Licks Attorneys like all other SEP holders who have enforced in Brazil so far, and Samsung by an attorney named Pedro Ivo Jourdan Gomes Bobsin.
ip fray will soon publish a podcast on Latin American SEP enforcement, which will include a discussion of the applicable legal standard and procedural rules in Brazil.
Context: Yesterday we reported that a press release by the Landgericht Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt Regional Court) revealed an antitrust action by an unknown implementer against an unknown Chinese cellular standard-essential patent (SEP) holder over FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing terms (February 12, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new: Based on a photo of the public notice (in lieu of regular service of process) that can currently be seen in the building of the Frankfurt Regional Court, ip fray can confirm that our conjecture was correct and it is indeed a Samsung v. ZTE antitrust lawsuit. The complaint was lodged with the court on December 20, 2024. Also, it has become discoverable that on January 23, 2025, the Poder Judiciário do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Judiciary of the [Brazilian] State of Rio de Janeiro) granted ZTE a preliminary injunction (PI) over Brazilian patent BR112015017291 (“Modulation processing method and device”), based on the combination of the urgency to put an end to market distortions caused by infringement and an initial showing on the merits with expert reports from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and the Université de Toulouse (France) as well as a 5G-specialized organization named TIM Labs.
Direct impact: For the reasons discussed in yesterday’s article on the Frankfurt action, it remains to be seen how Samsung seeks to explain to the German court that it needs an antitrust-based decision while asking for relief in the UK, and vice versa. As for the Brazilian PI, it appears that ZTE has a reasonably strong evidentiary basis at this stage, but it has happened in other Brazilian PI cases that enforcement was stayed (pending the appellate proceedings) against some payments.
Wider ramifications: Samsung’s pre-emptive strikes in the UK and Germany take legal maneuvering around SEPs to the next level. It appears that whenever some major SEP case law is made in Europe, there is an overwhelming likelihood of Huawei or ZTE (or in one famous case, both) being a party to the proceedings.
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