The Higher Regional Court Karlsruhe stops the enforcement of a first instance decision in the context of FRAND

In a decision of May 31, 2016, (6 U 55/16) the Higher Regional Court Karlsruhe has stopped the enforcement of a first instance decision which was based on a standard essential patent. A legal precondition hereto is that the decision of the first instance is presumably wrong. The District Court did not feel obliged to decide, in an infringement proceeding on the basis of objective facts, whether a licence offer of the holder of a standard essential patent was in compliance with FRAND-criteria or not. The District Court has taken the position that this question would go beyond the limits of patent infringement proceedings and confined itself to come to a summary judgment as to whether or not the licence offer “did evidently not contain FRAND-conditions”. The Higher Regional Court Karlsruhe was of the opinion that this is not sufficient when taking into account the decision of the European Court of Justice ((C-170/13). A mere summary judgment regarding this question is insufficient.