Tesla, Inc and others (Respondents) v InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc and another (Appellants) No 2, [2026] UKSC 27
2026-07-27
Read full decision. Summary prepared by Alan Macek:
The first question is whether there is a serious issue to be tried on Tesla’s claims (“the Licensing Claims”) for declaratory relief against InterDigital and Avanci. This in turn requires this court to consider whether the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction to decide a dispute concerning the terms of a licence to use a SEP in circumstances where the claim is brought by an implementer rather than the SEP owner, the SEP forms part of a platform of SEPs having different owners, and the licence is offered by the platform operator acting as agent of those different SEP owners. ... Thirdly, there is a dispute about the appropriate forum for the resolution of this dispute. Here a question arises as to whether the Delaware Court of Chancery is an available forum. ... for any SEP owner which is a member of the Avanci 5G Platform, there is a serious issue to be tried as to whether the FRAND licence of the SEPs of that owner is a platform licence on FRAND terms, rather than a bilateral licence of the SEPs of that Licensor and, separately, bilateral licences of the SEPs of each of the other platform Licensors necessary to operate according to the standard. The assessment of what is FRAND is to be informed by commercial practice in the real world, and it is Tesla’s case that in the real world the Avanci 5G Licensors rely on their platform licences to discharge their FRAND obligation.