Litigation over the Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (‘FRAND’) terms involved in licensing telecoms patents again kept the UK Patents Court busy in 2022. The year kicked off with a trial to determine FRAND terms for InterDigital’s cellular SEP portfolio in InterDigital v Lenovo, and a 5-week trial to determine the same for Optis’s portfolio in Optis v Apple over the summer followed the fourth and final technical trial between the parties. Philips v Xiaomi, IP Bridge v Huawei, and Ericsson v Apple all settled to clear the Court’s diary, whilst jurisdictional challenges and technical trials kept litigators busy in Nokia v OnePlus, InterDigital v OnePlus, Philips v Oppo and Kigen v Thales.

One of the IP Federation’s chief lobbying tools is its policy papers. These are all available on the website at:

https://www.ipfederation.com/

The policy papers on the website represent the views of the innovative and influen­tial com­panies which are members of the Federation. Members are con­sulted on their views and opinions and encouraged to debate and explore issues of practice and policy. Only after consensus is achieved are external bodies informed of the col­lective views of industry via the Federation.

The Federation and other representative organisations were consulted on the future of UK design law at the Marks and Designs Forum of the UK’s Intellectual Property Office in March 2010. The IPO had noted the overlap of protection be­tween UK and EU rights, and also had raised the possibility of criminal penalties for infringement of registered and unregistered rights.