UK High Court orders interim RAND Patent payments -Warner Bros v Nokia

Pursuant to the decision of the Patents Court handed down on 24 June 2026, Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) must make interim payments to Nokia, pending determination of a final global RAND licence over the Nokia Video Portfolio (NVP). Whilst the exact figures have been redacted in the public version of the judgment for the sake of commercial confidentiality, the Judgment as a whole still provides certain useful information.

Background and “agreed mechanism”

The dispute in Warner Bros Discovery Inc & Ors v Nokia Corporation & Anor arises from the use by WBD and Paramount of a set of patents for video streaming, claimed as standard essential patents (SEPs) by Nokia. Following a hearing in January 2026, the case departed from the normal flow of affairs, with Nokia proposing – and the parties accepting – an “Agreed Mechanism”, whereby all parallel litigation would be withdrawn and the entire matter settled with a single global RAND rate, to be determined by the UK court. Part and parcel of the Agreed Mechanism was the making of an interim payment by WBD and Paramount to Nokia, pending the final licence, with the amount thereof to be likewise determined by the UK court.

Mr Justice Meade spoke positively of the approach and its “elimination of extensive unnecessary litigation” and avoidance of injunction pressure, describing it as constructive and welcome.

Approaches to interim payment

However, while the non-refundable portion of the interim payment (i.e. that part not adjusted after the final decision, reflecting the irreducible minimum that Nokia will be entitled to) was agreed, the parties took “radically different” approaches to the matter of the adjustable portion.

Nokia’s approach was conceptually simple, advocating for comparison to bilateral licence agreements (Agreements A, B, and C), payment back to the first use of the relevant patents, and assessment of the interim payment on the same basis, as the final RAND rate.

WBD and Paramount first argued for no adjustable interim payment at all; this was dismissed out of hand. They then advocated for a “pool scaling” approach to calculating the final RAND amount, effectively benchmarking against existing patent pool rates for the applicable standards. However, specific to the interim hearing and interim payment determination, they also relied on another comparable agreement (Agreement D) and a 2024 lump-sum offer made by Nokia to Paramount (the “Nokia Lump Sum Offer (NLSO)”).

The WBD/Paramount estimate for the final RAND amount gave a lower bound of $250,000-$300,000 for the final RAND licence, without including full past use and interest. The Nokia approach yielded an amount “about three orders of magnitude higher” than the claimant’s figure. The parties were in agreement that regardless of the total payment value, WBD and Paramount would split it in the ratio 4:3 due to different subscriber numbers.

Past use

Past use proved one of the most controversial issues in the case. The claimants had been implementing the relevant standards – and therefore the patents in issue – since 2011. Nokia therefore argued that following the Court of Appeal’s ruling in Interdigital v Lenovo, all past use should be paid for with compound interest, regardless of the NLSO not covering the full period. Nokia also emphasised that the large payments sought were due to both the length of unlicensed use and the fact that streaming companies are built on codec technology. The judge noted the potential exception where an implementer could show an industry practice of forgiving past sales, but stated that while WBD can show that Nokia at least sometimes does not explicitly recover for all past sales, the evidence does not rise to the level of an industry practice.

WBD and Paramount argued in response that Nokia did not approach them until more recently, that there was an industry practice of not requiring past payment, that Nokia did not even have a video licensing program until much more recently, and that “(while Nokia stood by) the industry adopted and locked itself into the relevant video standards in the understanding that the technology would be paid for by device manufacturers and not the streaming companies.”

Mr Justice Meade observed that based on previous case law, Nokia would indeed be entitled to recovery back to 2011, and noted that the absence of such a demand at the time of the NLSO “cannot be taken to imply that [Nokia] was consciously passing it up.” He also acknowledged that the “unusual reasons” of industry practice (device-based licensing) and the lack of Nokia’s previous monetisation of its video patents created “some doubt” over Nokia’s ability to recover for the entire period, and made allowance for this in setting the interim payment.

It is worth noting that while not mentioned in the Judgment, the point regarding how far back payment of royalties with respect to past use / sales point in (F)RAND cases should go is in issue before the Supreme Court in Optis v Apple.

Mid-point approach modified

Overall, the NLSO was taken as the most relevant data point, given that it was “(a) relatively simple compared with all the other approaches, (b) an actual offer, and (c) between Nokia and one of the parties … for the same (or at least very similar) portfolio.” However, the relevant rate required adjustment in order to account for a longer time period (even if not all the way back to 2011). WBD and Paramount proposed using the NLSO as the top end and averaging that with the low end of the pool-scaling approach. This midpoint approach has typically been used in (F)RAND cases.

Mr Justice Meade distinguished this case by observing that the midpoint approach would factor in the claimants’ strongest case, while ignoring that of the defendants. Given that Nokia’s success at trial – and the consequent failure of the pool-scaling approach – would result in “a step change of tens of millions of dollars and multiple orders of magnitude,” he felt compelled to adjust the figure upwards slightly. Doing so, he stated, was “true to the principle that I should not conduct a mini-trial and generally faithful to the mid-point approach,” albeit modified subjectively to “the unusual range of possible methods for reaching an outcome, and the potentially large and abrupt impacts of choosing between them that this case presents.”

Trial expected early 2027

The final trial to determine the global RAND terms is expected to take place in early 2027. In the meantime, the interim payments will be made as set out in the Judgment, though due to the specific amounts being confidential, these have been redacted from the public Judgment.

This interim payment Judgment generally falls in line with the courts’ continuing preference for the “mid-point” method in setting interim payments when parties’ approaches diverge. However, Mr Justice Meade’s engagement, with each party’s underlying logic, highlights a flexible rather than mechanistic approach that future litigants should anticipate.

Meanwhile, the treatment of retrospective royalties underscores the need for claimants seeking such back-pay to provide robust justification for recovery for periods in which apparent licensing inaction or industry practice may have suggested otherwise.

Parties facing similar SEP disputes, especially those with exposure to large periods of purported unlicensed use, should approach interim payment hearings with careful consideration of industry context, evidential precision, and flexibility in negotiating position.

For further developments in the FRAND & SEP space, litigants and lawyers alike will be awaiting the UK Supreme Court decision in Tesla v InterDigital & Avanci, on whether FRAND commitments made to ETSI extend to multi-patent platform/pool licensing and whether the such a rate could be set at the request of the implementer rather than initiated by the proprietor.