Amazon v InterDigital

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Hearing date: 25 November 2025

Approved Judgment

INTRODUCTION

This is my judgment on the hearing of an application by the First to Fifth Defendants (“ InterDigital”) to set aside or in the alternative vary the interim anti-anti-suit injunction that I granted the Claimants (“ Amazon”) ex parte on 20 October 2025 (the “ AASI Order”) and continued on 30 October 2025 (the “ AASI Continuation Order”).

Mr Bloch KC appeared for InterDigital (with the assistance of Mr Campbell KC) and Mr Key KC for Amazon.

I have given a number of judgments in this litigation in fairly rapid succession. Three in particular matter for the purposes of this judgment:

i) A judgment I gave at a case management hearing on 9 October 2025 which I convened of my own motion following InterDigital's having obtained anti-suit relief in the German national court (Munich I) and in the UPC. The judgment is [2025] EWHC 2600 (Pat) and I will refer to it in this judgment as “ CMJ” (Case Management Judgment).

ii) The judgment of 20 October 2025 at which I made the AASI Order. I will refer to this judgment, which is [2025] EWHC 2708 (Pat), as “ EAJ” (Ex Parte Anti-anti-suit Judgment).

iii) My judgment of 30 October 2025 at the return date of the AASI Order, [2025] EWHC 2920 (Pat), at which I made the AASI Continuation Order. Amazon was ready to deal with any application to set aside or vary the AASI Order on that day, but InterDigital said it needed time, which I granted. I will refer to this as the “ RDJ” (Return Date Judgment).

In the interests of timely provision of this judgment, I do not intend to paraphrase or summarise those earlier ones. However, rather than simply invite the reader of this judgment to go and read all of the earlier ones I will, for convenience, set out here the key parts of each. The CMJ gives the general background; the EAJ is the main judgment about the basis for granting the AASI Order; the RDJ provides some important procedural context to InterDigital's complaints, and its conduct.

THE CMJ

The key parts of the CMJ are as follows:

2. These are RAND proceedings — as opposed to FRAND proceedings — because they concern digital streaming, and the ITU-T regime, rather than the ETSI regime, as was touched on in a number of hearings in the Nokia v Amazon litigation (which has since settled, and see further below). The parties need no introduction.

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4. The nature of the proceedings is extremely complex, but it is somewhat similar to the Nokia v Amazon litigation, to which the reader of this judgment can refer if they want to know further details (e.g. [2025] EWCA Civ 43, under the name Alcatel v Amazon). The difficulties and complexities compared with the ETSI-based telecoms cases of recent years are that there is a dispute over whether the RAND obligation under the ITU-T regime extends to both encoding and decoding patents or only to decoding, and the fact that it is said by Amazon in these proceedings, and in general in its dispute with InterDigital, that there is the possibility of specific performance of the ITU-T RAND obligation (which is subject to Swiss law), i.e. that InterDigital could be required actually to grant a licence on RAND terms. That was disputed by Nokia in Nokia v Amazon and is disputed by InterDigital in the same way: it says that there is no possibility of specific performance.

5. There has been negotiation between the parties. It is controversial what has happened in the course of those negotiations and who if any one is at fault over various aspects of it, which I will not go into, partly because it is not important to my decision, and partly because of a risk of trespassing on to the confidential matter. However, for whatever reason, and without any comment or otherwise on the appropriateness of it, which is hotly debated, Amazon began proceedings in the UK and elsewhere (in particular Brazil), with the UK proceedings beginning by a Claim Form on 29th August of this year and with Particulars of Claim of the same date.

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6. The proceedings are extensive. They include challenges to the validity of InterDigital streaming patents, challenges to their essentiality, a claim for declarations that they are not infringed, an allegation that InterDigital has abused a dominant position, and, pertinently, for certain declarations about InterDigital's obligations under the ITU-T RAND commitment. There is also the above-mentioned major issue over whether such RAND obligations as InterDigital has extend to encoding as well as decoding patents, and their interaction with video devices on the one hand and streaming services on the other, a key part of the commercial picture being Amazon Prime.

7. The proceedings as initially formulated included a declaration that Amazon was entitled to be offered a licence to the challenged patents on RAND terms, and a declaration of licence terms to the challenged patents, including, and this is critical to understanding the litigation landscape, terms that are adjustable pending full court determination, if granted before such a determination. That is the sort of relief that touches on the UK court's jurisdiction to make declarations about patentee's obligations to grant interim licences under RAND or FRAND obligations.

8. There is a complicated picture about the precise relief claimed in the prayer for relief, which I do not think I need to pick through, for reasons that will become apparent. However, importantly, the declaration of RAND terms includes what might be called substantive long-term permanent RAND terms and interim RAND terms adjustable pending a full court determination.

9. There are also complicated sequences of events surrounding service of the proceedings on InterDigital. Discussions between the parties about how to progress that and how to deal with the unsurprising challenge that InterDigital propose to make to this court's jurisdiction began soon after the issue of the claim form and continued. That led to two orders of Master McQuail.

10. The first order, of 18th September, was made on Amazon's application for permission to serve out. The Master permitted it. I do not need to go into the details.

11. The parties continued discussions about the timing of the Part 11 jurisdiction challenge application that InterDigital intended and intends to bring, and that led to the second order, a consent order, sealed on 30th September and dated by the Master on 29th September, setting some outline directions for the jurisdiction hearing, and providing that a timetable should be agreed, which, subject to the court's availability, would allow the hearing to take place no later than 30th January next year, 2026.

12. In the meantime, InterDigital prepared and made applications in the Munich 1 regional court of Germany and in the UPC, seeking anti-suit relief of significant scope — I will have to come back to that in a moment — to restrain Amazon from carrying on at least aspects of the UK proceedings. The applications came on for determination on paper (primarily – see below). The German court made an order on 26th September, which was clarified...