On 6 July 2026, the Casablanca Commercial Court issued two rulings barring Tecno Mobile and Itel Mobility, subsidiaries of Transsion Holdings, from selling smartphones in Morocco that were found to infringe Ericsson’s 4G and 5G cellular standard-essential patents. The decisions are being described as Africa’s first SEP injunctions, reached roughly six months after Ericsson filed suit in December 2025.
The immediate commercial effect was overtaken by a subsequent settlement: on 8 July, Ericsson and Transsion announced a multi-year global patent cross-licence and agreed to withdraw their pending proceedings worldwide. Even so, the Moroccan rulings matter. They show that an African court can move quickly in a technically complex SEP dispute and grant market-facing relief. Smartphone makers should therefore treat Morocco as part of their global licensing and litigation risk map, rather than assuming that decisive SEP enforcement will remain concentrated in Europe, Asia or Latin America.
