Samsung v ZTE: a five-week trial to value a patent licence
The Patents Court spent roughly five weeks of hearing time on the valuation evidence in a FRAND dispute between two handset manufacturers.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd and Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited v ZTE Corporation and others [2026] EWHC 999 (Pat) was handed down in redacted form by Mr Justice Meade on 1 May 2026.
The hearing ran from 19 January to 11 February 2026 – some five weeks of court time devoted substantially to the parties' competing valuation cases. Five defendants were named, including UK retail entities alongside the manufacturers.
So much of the evidence was commercially sensitive that the judgment was handed down with three separate tiers of confidentiality marking for party confidential information, third-party data and information confidential between the parties.
Five weeks in the Patents Court, with expert valuation evidence on both sides, is a multi-million-pound exercise before any licence is paid. Defence limits are sized against that reality, not against an average case.
DEFENCE UP TO £5M · PURSUIT UP TO £1M IN YEAR ONE · PURSUIT ONLY WITH DEFENCE
SOURCE: Judiciary.uk judgment (PDF)
Summarised for general information only. Nothing here is legal advice or a statement of policy terms – cover is subject to underwriting and the policy wording.