The jurisdictional tug-of-war in SEP disputes is rewriting strategy playbooks

The playbook has been erased, a senior representative from a Chinese device company told me on the sidelines of IAM’s SEP Summit Asia in Hong Kong in April. 

IP strategies are being rewritten in light of an apparent tug-of-war among the most favoured SEP enforcement jurisdictions over the power to decide cross-border disputes. Uncertainty is elevated and the risks are more pronounced, leading to choices that are increasingly difficult to explain to the C-suite. This was the general sentiment I heard on and off stage during the SEP Summit on 15 and 16 April, on the question of how jurisdictional tensions are impacting IP strategies. 

A few days before the conference, China issued anti-foreign overreach regulations, in which the State Council put forward a policy of blocking and countering foreign measures it perceives to be unduly exerting extraterritorial jurisdiction. Despite making no reference to IP, let alone SEPs or FRAND, the regulations have been viewed by some in the IP community as a potentially influential new tool for SEP enforcement (if, in practice, it empowers a Chinese licensee to, for example, seek to block the implementation of a global FRAND rate set by a foreign court). 

See more at: IAM