Recently, agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere has faced three lawsuits in Germany alleging infringement of 4G cellular standard-essential patents (SEPs). This marks the first time that cellular SEP enforcement actions have targeted an agricultural machinery manufacturer. The three lawsuits were filed by two different plaintiffs: Acer filed one lawsuit in the Mannheim Regional Court, case number 2 O 87/26; Beijing Jing Shi Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd. filed two lawsuits in the First Regional Court of Munich, with case numbers 7 O 7293/26 and 7 O 7713/26, respectively.
As the plaintiff in these lawsuits, Beijing Jing Shi Intellectual Property Management Co., Ltd., established in 2014, is an intellectual property firm focused on patent asset management and operations in the communications sector. Publicly available patent data shows that the company holds multiple core patents in the field of wireless communications, covering technologies such as LTE, wireless resource management, channel state information, and HARQ feedback, and has established a patent portfolio in overseas markets including Europe and Brazil. In terms of patent operations, Beijing Jing Shi joined the Avanci patent pool as a licensor in September 2025; in 2026, the company also filed a patent infringement lawsuit against entities affiliated with MediaTek at the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court.
The defendant, John Deere, is the world’s largest manufacturer of agricultural machinery, headquartered in Moline, Illinois, and currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition to its core agricultural equipment—such as tractors and combine harvesters—its business also encompasses construction equipment, lawn care equipment, and financial services. In fiscal year 2025, John Deere’s global net sales and revenue reached $45.684 billion, with a net profit of $5.027 billion. In recent years, the company has invested heavily in “precision agriculture,” positioning autonomous driving, satellite positioning, and cellular connectivity as key selling points for its next-generation agricultural machinery. It is precisely these connectivity features that have brought the company to the attention of communication SEP rights holders.
Looking back at the history of cellular SEP enforcement in recent years, the range of end-user product categories covered has continued to expand.
The earliest main battleground for enforcement was the passenger car market. Marked by the series of cases involving Nokia v. Daimler, and following multiple rounds of litigation, most major global automakers have secured patent licenses through patent pools such as Avanci. Subsequently, the scope of enforcement extended to commercial vehicles. In 2025, Acer and L2 Mobile—a subsidiary of Longhorn—filed lawsuits against truck manufacturer PACCAR in Germany and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas; the dispute ultimately concluded with PACCAR obtaining a license from Avanci. The current lawsuit against John Deere, however, formally extends the scope of cellular SEP enforcement to the agricultural machinery sector.
In fact, the underlying logic behind the continuous expansion of enforcement categories is not complicated. The legal basis for cellular SEPs lies in the communication standards themselves, rather than in specific device forms. Any product—be it a smartphone, passenger car, truck, or tractor—that incorporates a communication module implementing the 4G standard may fall within the scope of the relevant patents. After securing large-scale licensing agreements in the passenger car and truck markets, rights holders naturally turn their attention to other vertical industries where connectivity has become widespread but licensing has not yet been finalized.
John Deere fits this profile perfectly. Its new-generation tractors, combine harvesters, and other products are widely equipped with cellular communication modules. The accompanying JDLink connectivity system transmits equipment data to the John Deere Operations Center via cellular networks, enabling functions such as remote monitoring, fault diagnosis, and data management. According to disclosures on John Deere’s official website, the company has approximately 500,000 connected devices globally and processes over 70 million data records daily. For SEP rights holders, this means that this agricultural machinery giant has hundreds of thousands of 4G terminals that have not obtained patent licenses.
Compared to passenger car manufacturers, traditional manufacturing sectors such as agricultural machinery and construction equipment have weaker in-house R&D capabilities for communication technologies and rely almost entirely on external suppliers for cellular communication modules. Consequently, the conflict over “who should bear the licensing obligation” becomes even more pronounced. It is foreseeable that the agricultural machinery sector will not be the final frontier for the enforcement of cellular SEP rights. Traditional manufacturing sectors such as construction equipment and logistics equipment—which are also installing cellular modules on a large scale—will sooner or later face the same licensing issues.
