Hague Court assumes international jurisdiction in FRAND proceedings initiated by Vestel regarding HEVC Advance Patent Pool

By recently published interlocutory judgment of 15 December 2021 the District Court The Hague assumed international jurisdiction in FRAND proceedings.

Turkish television manufacturer Vestel initiated proceedings against HEVC Advance patent pool administrator Access Advance (US) and pool members Philips (NL), GE Video Compression (US) and IP Bridge (JP) before the District Court The Hague. In these proceedings Vestel requests, inter alia, a declaratory judgment that neither Access Advance’s pool license offer nor the bilateral offers of its members Philips, GE Video Compression and IP Bridge are FRAND, that Vestel’s license offer(s) are FRAND or, in the alternative, that the Dutch court set a global FRAND rate. Access Advance and the non-Dutch pool members challenged the Court’s jurisdiction to hear Vestel’s claims. The Court rejected this jurisdiction challenge by interlocutory judgment.

In short, the Court held it has jurisdiction to hear the claims against pool administrator Access Advance and the non-Dutch pool members based on connectivity of claims against Dutch pool member Philips (jurisdiction undisputed).

The decision is discussed in more detail (in English) on Kluwer Patent Blog and on Juve Patent. The decision (in Dutch) can be found here.

The jurisdiction challenge was handled for Vestel by Richard Ebbink, Daan de Lange, Rik Lambers and Boukje van der Maazen of Brinkhof jointly with Marc Kuijper and Anouk Rosielle of Dentons.