The EU will ask the World Trade Organization to set up a dispute panel on 24 February 2026 over Chinese court powers to set worldwide licensing terms for certain patents, including royalty rates.
The case, known as DS632, concerns standard essential patents (SEPs) — patents covering technologies needed to meet an industry standard such as 5G in mobile phones — which are held in large numbers by European companies, particularly in telecoms, the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday.
China has enabled its courts to set binding global licensing conditions for portfolios of SEPs, including non-Chinese patents such as EU patents, without the consent of patent holders. Those court decisions can include royalty rates, it added.
The EU said it considers the Chinese practices inconsistent with the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
What happens next at the WTO
Consultations between the EU and China in April 2025 did not resolve the dispute, the Commission said.
The EU will formally request a panel at the next meeting of the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) on 24 February 2026.
China can block the panel’s establishment once, and if it does the EU plans to renew the request at the following DSB meeting, at which point the panel would be set up.
The EU is also involved in a separate WTO dispute with China over SEPs, known as DS611, in which a WTO Appeal Arbitrator ruled in the EU’s favour in July 2025, and the Commission said it is monitoring China’s implementation of those findings.
