The EU filed another complaint against China at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The EU Commission accuses Beijing of having empowered its courts to set worldwide royalty rates for EU standard essential patents – without the patent owner’s consent. „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,“ it said in a statement on Monday. According to the EU, this violates the WTO agreement on intellectual property (TRIPS). Despite repeated negotiations with China, no solution has yet been found.