diff --git a/docs/packages/vllm-router.yaml b/docs/packages/vllm-router.yaml
index c5399cb8cdad..cfe42dee81de 100644
--- a/docs/packages/vllm-router.yaml
+++ b/docs/packages/vllm-router.yaml
@@ -9,3 +9,4 @@ versions:
   - filename: vllm_router-0.1.15-cp38-abi3-manylinux_2_39_riscv64.whl
     sha256: 8f8e3a36f4adf3006dbbc4071435a377cfd4496a7390463156ca87720692ccb2
     requires-python: '>=3.8'
+- version: 0.1.16
diff --git a/patches/vllm-router/0.1.16/0001-ship-the-license-file-in-the-wheel.patch b/patches/vllm-router/0.1.16/0001-ship-the-license-file-in-the-wheel.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..7e24bc9fce87
--- /dev/null
+++ b/patches/vllm-router/0.1.16/0001-ship-the-license-file-in-the-wheel.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+Upstream-Status: Inappropriate [twine#1216's workaround does not apply to our publish pipeline, which never runs twine, and it costs us the wheel's licence file]
+
+`[tool.setuptools] license-files = []` disables setuptools' default LICENSE* glob, so every
+upstream wheel (and ours, unpatched) ships no licence text at all. Our publish pipeline does
+not use twine, so the workaround upstream added for pypa/twine#1216 does not apply here and
+only costs us the licence file. Dropping the override restores the default
+`license-files = ["LICEN[CS]E*"]` glob, which picks up the repository's root `LICENSE`.
+
+--- pyproject.toml
++++ pyproject.toml
+@@ -40,10 +40,6 @@ vllm-router = "vllm_router.launch_router:main"
+ [tool.setuptools.packages]
+ find = { where = ["py_src"] }
+ 
+-# workaround for https://github.com/pypa/twine/issues/1216
+-[tool.setuptools]
+-license-files = []
+-
+ [tool.distutils.bdist_wheel]
+ py_limited_api = "cp38"
+