The U.S. Court of Appeals sounded poised Monday to defer to a Chinese injunction that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. says will force it to “cry uncle” in its high-stakes patent licensing dispute with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

“Samsung can’t afford to have its plants shut down in China,” Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner Charles Verhoeven told the court in the Monday hearing. Such a shutdown would force Samsung to accept unfair terms for Huawei patents that are essential to practicing 3G and 4G connectivity standards.