EU challenges China at WTO on royalties for EU high-tech sector

The European Commission has requested consultations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) aiming to remove unfair and illegal trade practices by China in the sphere of intellectual property.
China has empowered its courts to set binding worldwide royalty rates for EU standard essential patents, without the consent of the patent owner. This pressures innovative European high-tech companies into lowering their rates on a worldwide basis, thus giving Chinese manufacturers cheaper access to those European technologies unfairly.