标准必要专利诉讼中禁诉令的适用

Study on Application of Anti-Suit Injunction in SEP Litigations

在全球通讯领域的标准必要专利诉讼中,本国法院的判决经常具有国际影响力,在判决涉及专利全球许可费率时尤其如此。当事人因此有了争夺有利法院进行诉讼的强烈动机。禁诉令是诉讼管辖权争夺战中的重要制度工具。现有法律已经为中国法院颁发禁诉令提供宏观依据,但在微观层面,禁诉令制度还有很大的细化和改进空间。中国法院应采取“谨慎但针锋相对”的禁诉策略,即在建立有效的国际协调机制之前,原则上容忍国际重叠诉讼,只有重叠诉讼可能过度损害本国诉讼的一方当事人的利益,或者实质损害中国的公共政策或公共利益目标时,法院才颁发禁诉令或禁执令;当外国法院的禁诉令威胁到中国法院的管辖权时,中国法院可以对等颁发反禁诉令。鉴于中国市场本身的全球地位,采用这一禁诉策略,中国法院能够捍卫司法权威,维护市场主体对司法系统的信心。

In standard essential patent t(SEP)litigations,national courts'decisions often have international impact,especially when global rates of SEP licenses are determined thereby.The parties therefore have a strong incentive to conduct a forum-shopping competition and resort to anti-suit injunction to prevent parallel suits.Existing Chinese laws do provide a solid legal basis for a court to issue anti-suit injunctions,but at the micro level,it still has much room for improvement.When issuing anti-suit injunctions,Chinese courts had better adopt a"self-restraint but tit-for-tat"'strategy,that is,to tolerate foreign parallel suits in principle and issue anti-suit injunctions only when foreign parallel suits are really vexatious and oppressive to one party,or substantially violate China's public policy.When a foreign court's anti-suit injunction threatens the jurisdiction of a Chinese court,an anti-anti-suit injunction may be granted.In view of the importance of Chinese market to SEP holders,we believe this anti-suit strategy would help China to defend its judicial sovereignty and build trust among global players in the SEP market.