In the 2015 case Huawei/ZTE, the Court of Justice of the European Union took one of its rare opportunities to rule on the interface of antitrust and patent law. The question before the Court was whether the holder of a standard-essential patent abuses a dominant position by seeking an injunction against a potential licensee. Regarding a previous line of cases under European law, the Court took a surprisingly easy solution by forcing the companies to get back to the negotiation table. This may be attributed to a new methodological balancing approach of the Court. While acknowledging the problem of patent thickets, the Court restrains the role of antitrust authorities in this field.
Standard-Essential Patent and abuse of market dominance -focusing on Qualcomm case-