On 2 December 2025, Meade J handed down judgment in Amazon.com, Inc v InterDigital VC Holdings, Inc [2025] EWHC 3170 (Pat). The judgment rejected InterDigital’s application to set aside an anti-anti-suit injunction (AASI) prohibiting InterDigital from taking any steps to restrain Amazon’s pursuit of certain claims in pending proceedings in the Patents Court.
The AASI was initially granted on an ex parte basis on 20 October 2025. It was subsequently continued at a return date hearing on 30 October 2025, albeit subject to InterDigital’s pending set aside application. The latest judgment has comprehensively rejected that set aside application and confirmed the appropriateness of the AASI.
The AASI has a non-contractual basis, i.e. it does not rely on an English exclusive jurisdiction or arbitration agreement. The Court based its decision on (i) the need to protect the English court’s jurisdiction and (ii) vexation or oppression arising from the very real likelihood that, if not prevented by an AASI, InterDigital would seek to obtain ASI relief from foreign courts against the English proceedings: [44]-[53] and [97]. Meade J held that comity issues did not negate the need for the AASI, particularly given that the AASI does not limit what can be argued in foreign courts or tribunals outside of seeking ASI relief or ASI-related relief: [84]-[97].
Amazon’s AASI was made against the backdrop of ASIs recently made – against it, on InterDigital’s application – by the German Regional Court in Munich and by the Unified Patent Court (UPC). The ASIs concerned interim relief claims in the English proceedings, not the final relief claims that were the object of Amazon’s application.
The judgment is available here.
Paul Key KC appeared at the hearing and also at the 30 October 2025 return date. Anton Dudnikov KC, together with Henry Ward, appeared for Amazon at the ex parte 20 October 2025 hearing. They were instructed by Paul Brown of Hogan Lovells.
