Recently, U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright of the Western District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction formally ordering patent licensing company Onesta to immediately withdraw two lawsuits filed against BMW AG in Munich's First Regional Court involving U.S. patents. Previously, Onesta had attempted to enforce its U.S. patent rights through German litigation proceedings, but the U.S. court's injunction has now been elevated to a binding preliminary injunction.

On January 13, 2026, Judge Albright signed an order following a hearing, converting the previously issued temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction. This ruling requires Onesta to immediately comply with the U.S. court's order unless it can swiftly obtain an emergency stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The court rejected Onesta's defenses regarding jurisdiction and inconvenience of enforcement. Judge Albright noted the injunction aims to prevent parties from using foreign court proceedings to interfere with potential U.S. court jurisdiction over related U.S. patent cases.

This ruling marks a significant advancement in BMW's legal strategy to halt Onesta's parallel litigation in Germany. The case represents another landmark instance of U.S. courts employing forum non conveniens to intervene in overseas patent litigation, focusing on clarifying jurisdictional coordination between U.S. and EU courts when the disputed patent is U.S.-based but the defendant maintains substantial operations within the EU.

The dispute originated in 2025 when Onesta sued BMW in Munich, alleging infringement of several U.S. patents. In response, BMW promptly filed a lawsuit against Onesta in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas and successfully obtained a preliminary injunction (TRO) requiring Onesta to suspend its German proceedings. By late 2025, the judge extended the TRO and scheduled this hearing as the pivotal point to determine whether to convert it into a preliminary injunction. During this period, while Onesta assured the U.S. court it would not seek a counter-injunction in Munich, it persisted in advancing the German court proceedings.

In his ruling, Judge Albright sided with BMW, concluding that allowing the German proceedings to continue would cause undue interference and waste resources that could be better directed toward the substantive patent issues potentially addressed by the U.S. court. After weighing the principle of international comity against the necessity of preventing strategic, vexatious litigation, the judge determined that issuing a preliminary injunction served the interests of justice. This decision also indirectly addressed external concerns about potential overreach by the Munich court—the ruling explicitly noted that the Munich court had not yet made any substantive jurisdictional determinations in this case, and any potential subsequent rulings must strictly adhere to the EU legal framework.