Recently, TCL filed two separate lawsuits against InterDigital with the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court (hereinafter referred to as the Shenzhen Intermediate Court), involving the determination of global FRAND licensing rates for HEVC standard-essential patents and civil antitrust claims. This marks the first time TCL has brought the litigation back to China since the two parties launched a global, multi-jurisdictional patent battle in February 2026.

IP Economy recently spoke with SIM IP Co-Founder and CEO Erich Spangenberg about the firm's business model and patent-screening criteria, the impact of AI on patent transactions and examination, changes in China's innovation environment, and the outlook for patent monetization. Spangenberg said that China has become a leading force in global innovation and that Chinese patents contain substantial value that remains to be unlocked.

Recently, Netlist and Samsung Electronics announced that they have reached a five-year patent cooperation agreement covering cross-licensing of patents, the supply of memory products, technical cooperation, and other areas, and agreed to resolve several previous patent disputes related to memory technology.

This case stems from the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Huawei against Disney, which is pending before the Mannheim Regional Division of the UPC. Huawei alleges that the Disney Group and 12 of its subsidiaries have infringed its European patent EP3211897, titled “Methods and Apparatus for Encoding and Decoding Transform Coefficients,” which has been incorporated into the Avanci video patent pool, of which Huawei is one of the licensors.

Notably, the case was not terminated because the plaintiff’s claims of trade secret infringement lacked merit, but rather because a “forum-selection clause” in a prior agreement between the parties was upheld by a U.S. federal court, thereby prohibiting Zync from proceeding with the ITC proceedings. As a result, this case has become a rare example in recent years where a forum-selection clause has influenced the progress of a Section 337 investigation.

On July 30, 2026, following the issuance of a non-binding preliminary opinion by the German Federal Patent Court, the Seventh Civil Division of the Munich Regional Court No. 1 decided to cancel the trial on the very day it was scheduled to begin in the case of Advanced Standard Communication (ASC) v. Xiaomi regarding infringement of standard-essential patents.

Recently, the patent portfolio management company Malikie Innovations Limited filed a lawsuit against OPPO, its sub-brands Realme and OnePlus, and OPPO’s distributors in Europe regarding Patent No. EP3843496.

On July 8, 2026, Thailand’s Specialized Appeals Court issued a second-instance ruling on the long-standing trademark dispute between Luckin Coffee and the Thai company Royal 50R Group: It dismissed the defendant’s appeal, affirmed that Luckin Coffee holds superior rights to the disputed trademark, upheld the revocation of the defendant’s registered trademark, and maintained the court’s previous rulings, including a permanent injunction, 10 million baht in damages, and ongoing compensation. With this ruling, Luckin has secured a final victory in its efforts to protect its rights against malicious trademark squatting in Thailand.

This case stems from two patent infringement lawsuits filed by Siemens with the Munich Regional Court No. 1 in September 2025, involving EP2070269, titled “Group Scheduling,” and EP2052517, titled “Method and System for Providing Access to a Specific Key,” respectively. Honor subsequently filed requests for invalidation of the two patents with the German Federal Patent Court on January 14 and January 20, 2026.

On July 23, 2026, the commission imposed fines on TikTok and two Apple affiliates, ordering them to rectify their violations and disclose the facts regarding their illegal collection, use, and cross-border transfer of South Korean users’ personal information. TikTok was fined 10.306 billion won (approximately 47.54 million yuan), while Apple was fined 252 million won (equivalent to approximately 1.16 million RMB).