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The Unitary Patent Court Is Changing SEP Battles Forever: Here’s What You Need to Know
Europe’s patent litigation landscape has shifted more in the past two years than in the previous two decades. Since its launch in June 2023, the Unitary Patent Court (UPC) – now covering 18 EU member states including Romania, which joined in September 2024 – has handled 946 cases, moving from pilot phase to high-volume forum.
Nowhere is its impact clearer than in Standard Essential Patent (SEP) enforcement. What was once a fragmented, multi-country process is now becoming a streamlined, Europe-wide system, with profound implications for how quickly and effectively rights can be enforced. With SEP licensing already worth over €11 billion annually, the UPC’s emergence is setting the stage for a new era of patent battles.
Unitary Patent Filing and Grant Trends
Since going live in June 2023, Unitary Patent (UP) grants have surged, driven largely by the conversion of pre-existing European Patent applications.
Figure 1. Growth of Unitary Patent grants 2021–25
This early “conversion wave” pushed grants from 18,288 in 2023 to over 28,000 in 2024. By mid-2025, more than 13,500 additional grants had already been published.
Every UP granted is automatically enforceable across all participating member states, creating unprecedented enforcement leverage for SEP owners – one case, one court, one pan-European injunction.
SEP Landscape Across Europe
The SEP landscape under the Unitary Patent system shows both concentration of ownership and a broadening technology base.
Figure 2. Breakdown of SEP technologies, showing telecom’s dominance alongside emerging diversification
Telecom remains dominant – 5G alone accounts for 755 records, followed by LTE (325) and 3G (126). However, diversification is under way, with SEPs increasingly declared in areas such as security, access control, circuits, computing, and processing. This shift signals future disputes extending beyond smartphones and network equipment to connected vehicles, IoT manufacturing, and digital health platforms.
Telecom and electronics giants still hold the largest SEP portfolios: Qualcomm (251), Lenovo (212), Ericsson (184), Samsung (114), and Nokia (85). These figures reflect ongoing concentration among major industry players.
Figure 3. Leading holders of SEPs within the Unitary Patent system.
This widening scope of SEPs means the UPC’s influence will extend well beyond telecom disputes; its unified enforcement framework is set to shape licensing and litigation strategies across diverse industries.
Why the UPC is a Game-Changer
Before the UPC, enforcing an SEP in Europe meant parallel battles in multiple national courts, each with its own evidentiary rules, timelines, and FRAND interpretations. This fragmentation increased costs and risk, while producing inconsistent and sometimes conflicting decisions.
UPC changes that equation entirely with:
- Unified Enforcement – One decision can apply across up to 18 EU member states, drastically reducing litigation redundancy.
- Consistent Jurisprudence – A single court harmonises FRAND and essentiality rulings, removing uncertainty from divergent national decisions.
- Negotiation Leverage – The credible threat of a pan-European injunction raises stakes and encourages earlier settlements.
For SEP owners, this means faster, broader, and more strategically powerful enforcement. For implementers, it offers clearer rules of engagement and the ability to resolve disputes without a maze of national litigation.
The Landmark Panasonic v Oppo Ruling
In November 2024, the UPC’s Local Division in Mannheim delivered its first substantive FRAND/SEP judgment in Panasonic v Oppo. The court found patent EP 2 568 724 valid and infringed, granted a pan-European injunction against Oppo’s 4G-enabled products, and awarded provisional damages of €250,000.
The decision is notable for three reasons:
- Jurisdiction & Scope – The UPC confirmed it can hear FRAND counterclaims and set licensing terms alongside infringement claims.
- Approach to FRAND – The court assessed good faith conduct, transparency, and timely negotiation, not just procedural formalities.
- Remedies – A pan-EU injunction and rejection of invalidity challenges underscored the high stakes of SEP litigation at the UPC.
PatSeer Capabilities in the New SEP Landscape
In this transformed environment, success demands more than legal expertise – it requires strategic foresight and the right intelligence tools. PatSeer’s worldwide disclosed SEP database covers SEP declarations from a wide range of SSOs, including ETSI/3GPP, IEEE, ITU-T, MPEG, and ANSI, enabling targeted searches by standard body, technology, or standard title. Its visual analytics offer quick insights into SEP technologies, owners, and distributions across companies and jurisdictions, helping you pinpoint litigation risks or licensing opportunities.
PatSeer has also recently introduced an SEP Claim Charting tool that allows you to map patent claim elements to SEP standard documents, meeting notes etc. and thereby detect whether a declared patent is truly essential to a standard or not.
Additionally, PatSeer allows precise filtering of legal status for Unitary patents – such as opt-outs, lapses, rejections, or licensing – making it easier to track portfolio changes and enforcement potential. Its AI-driven search refinements further enhance accuracy, ensuring that decision-makers have the clearest possible view of patent landscapes.
Conclusion
With the UPC’s reach expanding and SEP declarations spreading into automotive, medtech, industrial IoT, and beyond, litigation volumes are set to climb. The Panasonic v Oppo ruling signals a shift toward centralized FRAND enforcement, raising both leverage for rights holders and compliance pressures for implementers.
The reactive era is over; proactive, intelligence-driven strategies, powered by tools like PatSeer, will be essential to thrive in Europe’s evolving patent reality.