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| Munich Law Courts
Author Berthold Werner Licence CC BY-SA 3.0 Source Wikipedia Commons
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Patents Court (Mr Justice Meade) Amazon.com Inc and others v Interdigital VC Holdings Inc and others [2025] EWHC 3170 (Pat) (2 Dec 2025)
The Munich Regional Court made its initial order on 26 Sept 2025 and modified it on 1 Oct 2026. The Mannheim Local Division made its order on 30 Sept 2025 and not on 30 Oct as Mr Justice Meade said in para [13] of his judgment of 9 Oct 2025. InterDigital served both orders on Amazon on 2 Oct 2025.
Fearing that InterDigital might ask the Munich Regional Court, Mannheim Local Division or some other court to restrain it from pursuing its claim to final RAND relief, Amazon applied without notice to Mr Justice Meade on 20 Oct 2025 for an anti-anti-suit injunction preventing InterDigital from seeking such an order. The learned judge granted the injunction in Amazon.Com, Inc and others v InterDigital VC Holdings, Inc and others [2025] EWHC 2708 (Pat) in the following terms:
“Until after the return date or further order of the Court, the Respondents (and each of them), whether by their directors, officers, partners, employees or agents, or in any other way, must not take any steps in any court or tribunal (wherever situated) to seek any orders, measures or other relief (including, without limitation, anti-suit relief) which would, directly or indirectly:
a. restrain, prevent or prohibit the Applicants or any of them from pursuing the Final Relief (or any part of it), the AASI Application, the Continuation Application, and/or the Expedition Application;
b. require the Applicants or any of them to withdraw any claims for the Final Relief (or any part of it), the AASI Application, the Continuation Application, and/or the Expedition Application;
c. seek to penalise the Applicants or any of them for the pursuit of the Final Relief (or any part of it), the AASI Application, the Continuation Application, and/or the Expedition Application.”
“i) No sufficient threat or intent on its part to get ASI relief preventing Amazon from seeking final RAND relief.
ii) Offence against comity (which it said had to be assessed in the light of the no threat/intent question).
iii) The AASI Order should be varied to clarify its scope.”
Mr Justice Meade observed at para [31] that a claimant cannot get an injunction just by asserting a fear that something will be done coupled with the argument that if the Defendant does not intend to do it, an injunction will do no harm. He referred to the following passage of Lord Justice Harman’s judgment in Paul v Southern [1964] RPC 118, which Mr Justice Birss quoted in Merck Sharp & Dohme v Teva [2013] EWHC 1958 (Pat):
“It is exactly as if Mr Aldous in a sworn affidavit has said: ‘I am fearful that unless restrained by the Court Sir Lionel Heald will hit me on the head with a volume of the Patent Reports’. He then goes on and says ‘If he is not going to do it, it will not hurt him, so you may as well grant an injunction’. I have heard that argument before.”
“The principles for the granting of anti-suit relief on the vexation and oppression basis are summarised by Males LJ in SAS Institute Inc v World Programming Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 599 at [90]-[91], [103] and [108] and in JP Morgan I précised that summary and principles derived from other authorities cited in that case as follows:
(ii) Established categories of case where an injunction may be appropriate (which may overlap) include cases where an injunction is necessary to protect the jurisdiction of the English court and cases where the pursuit of foreign proceedings is regarded as vexatious or oppressive, but the jurisdiction is not confined to these categories and must be applied flexibly.
(iii) Great caution must be exercised before such an injunction is granted, at any rate in cases where the injunction is not sought in order to enforce an arbitration or exclusive jurisdiction clause, because of the requirements of comity.
(iv) When an anti-suit injunction is sought on grounds which do not involve a breach of contract, comity, telling against interference with the process of a foreign court, will always require careful consideration.
(v) Comity requires that in order for an anti-suit injunction to be granted, the English court must have ‘a sufficient interest’ in the matter in question. Often that sufficient interest will exist by reason of the fact that the English court is the natural forum for the determination of the parties’ dispute. In a case where the injunction is sought in order to protect the jurisdiction or process of the English courts, the existence of a sufficient interest will generally be self-evident.
(vi) The categories of factors which may amount to vexation and oppression are not closed (Elektrim SA v Vivendi Holdings 1 Corp [2008]EWCA Civ 1178, [83]).
(vii) At [146], I added my own observation that even in cases in which injunctive relief is not sought on a contractual or quasi-contractual basis, the fact that the foreign proceedings involve the circumvention of an agreement for arbitration with an English seat, or an English EJC, can itself be relevant in determining whether the commencement and pursuit of the foreign proceedings is vexatious and oppressive, as well as establishing the necessary ‘sufficient interest’ of the English court to act.”
“(5) An anti-suit injunction always requires caution because by definition it involves interference with the process or potential process of a foreign court. An injunction to enforce an exclusive jurisdiction clause governed by English law is not regarded as a breach of comity, because it merely requires a party to honour his contract. In other cases, the principle of comity requires the court to recognise that, in deciding questions of weight to be attached to different factors, different judges operating under different legal systems with different legal policies may legitimately arrive at different answers, without occasioning a breach of customary international law or manifest injustice, and that in such circumstances it is not for an English court to arrogate to itself the decision how a foreign court should determine the matter. The stronger the connection of the foreign court with the parties and the subject matter of the dispute, the stronger the argument against intervention.”
InterDigital had argued that the anti-ant-suit injunction was directed purely at the risk of its interfering with expedition. His lordship said at para [47] that the following had to be taken into account when determining risk and intention:
- InterDigital had already sought and obtained anti-suit injunctions directed against these proceedings;
- It had done so ex parte; and
- It had initially argued that the Munich and Mannheim injunctions did prevent the English courts from granting final RAND relief.
He added that he had factored those matters into his decision to grant the injunction and that they remained relevant. He concluded at [53] that InterDigital would dearly like to prevent final RAND relief being sought in the UK and that there was a very high likelihood that it would seek to expand the anti-suit relief in Germany or the Unified Patent Court if not prevented by an anti-anti-suit injunction,
“It goes without saying that any order, but especially one for an injunction, should be as clear as possible. If the AASI Order was or is avoidably unclear then I am of course open to clarifying it. Even were I to think that it is clear but also that InterDigital has a reasonable (if misplaced) concern, then I would be willing to consider including a provision “for the avoidance of doubt”, although experience teaches that those often have the opposite effect. I am also happy to include clarifications if I think they will assist the UPC or the German court.”
The learned judge made clear at [86] that InterDigital could argue in proceedings before the UPC or German courts that any final RAND relief in the UK would be ineffective in those jurisdictions. There was nothing to prevent InterDigital from bringing or continuing infringement claims. It could even bring overlapping rate-setting claims if it so wished. It just could not try to prevent a final RAND Trial in the UK from going ahead.
His lordship concluded that there was a strong and sufficient intention/threat/likelihood of InterDigital’s seeking anti-suit injunctive relief if not restrained. There was no lack of comity in continuing the anti-anti-suit injunction. It was therefore justified to protect the English courts’ jurisdiction over final RAND relief and to prevent vexation or oppression for the reasons the judge gave in his judgment on Amazon’s application for ex parte injunctive relief. He therefore decided to continue the order with the modifications mentioned above.
Konstanze Richter has chronicled the proceedings in Munich and Mannheim as well as in London in InterDigital vs Amazon – A chronology of the escalation 16 March 2026 Juve Patent. Anyone wishing to discuss this topic may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any time.