The judgment does not concern whether the existence of patent pools and the licensing rate set by patent pools can be considered as not complying with the requirements for FRAND. On the contrary, the Supreme Court recognised the practical solution offered by patent pools like the Avanci 5G platform by offering a licensing rate for all SEPs on the platform. However, the Supreme Court decided that it is a legitimate question for UK courts to consider whether a rate set by a patent pool is indeed FRAND, which can be challenged by an implementer being asked to take a license on a licensing rate set by the pool.

The Supreme Court was asked to address the following key legal questions:

1. Do English courts have jurisdiction to determine FRAND licensing terms for a multi-party global patent pool? 

Historically, UK courts have set global FRAND rates for bilateral licenses between two individual companies as established in the landmark decision of Unwired Planet v Huawei.

The Supreme Court had to decide if it could extend this jurisdiction to declare a FRAND rate for a patent platform, like Avanci, as an intermediary or agent for SEP owners, even when those other owners are not parties to the lawsuit.

2. Do individual FRAND commitments apply to patent pools?

The Supreme Court had to determine whether SEP owners can circumvent their FRAND obligation by offering licences through patent licensing platform that offers only non-negotiable, flat-rate pricing. That is, does the FRAND obligation follow the patent into the pool? This is because it is the SEP owner that is bound by the FRAND terms, but does this extend to the patent licensing organisation setting the licensing rate?

3. Can an implementer proactively have a court determine a FRAND rate?

Can a UK court be used to evaluate whether a rate offered by a patent pool like Avanci complies with a FRAND rate?

4. Did Tesla’s global licensing claims sufficiently “relate to” UK patents?

On more technical grounds, a UK court must first decide whether it can determine a global FRAND rate, according to established conditions or gateways, concerning whether the question relates to UK patents, and can therefore anchor the dispute in the UK. In other words, whether a dispute over a global pool license “relates to” specific UK patents enough to justify serving the judgement on foreign defendants, because both InterDigital and Avanci were not based in the UK.

5. Is the UK the appropriate venue for this dispute?

Related to the previous question 4, Tesla, InterDigital, and Avanci are all US-based corporate entities and so the Supreme Court had to determine whether the English High Court was the wrong venue, which had been argued by the defendants.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favour of Tesla on all of these questions.

The court confirmed that English courts do have jurisdiction to set FRAND rates for global patent pools, that FRAND obligations do not disappear when patents are licensed via a pool, and that the UK is an appropriate forum for the