On 8 May 2026, the 10th Civil Chamber of the Court of Appeal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, issued a ruling in the dispute between Nokia and Asus concerning standard-essential patents for the AVC/H.264 standard: It dismissed Asus’s application to set aside the interim injunction, upheld the previous interim injunction against Asus, and ruled to exclude the relevant opinion in an expert report which concluded that the patent in question was not standard-essential and consequently denied that Asus had infringed the patent; it further ordered a new expert to be appointed to provide a supplementary report on this issue.
This case stems from infringement proceedings brought by Nokia against Asus in Brazil concerning AVC/H.264 standard-essential patents. Nokia claims that Asus has implemented in its products the Skip mode processing method protected by its Brazilian patent BRPI0304565, the relevant claims of which have been found to cover the decoding functions of the AVC/H.264 standard and are therefore standard-essential patents. Previously, the court of first instance had issued a provisional injunction against ASUS on this basis; ASUS, dissatisfied with the ruling, lodged an appeal.
In this ruling, the court made a relatively clear statement on the issue of FRAND. Regarding whether the licensing terms were discriminatory, the court found that ASUS had failed to adduce evidence proving that the licensing conditions proposed by Nokia violated the FRAND principle, nor had it demonstrated that Nokia was using the litigation to exert pressure on commercial negotiations. The court specifically noted that ASUS had been negotiating with Nokia regarding the licensing terms for the patent in question for at least eight years, and on this basis determined that the interim injunction was a necessary precautionary measure to safeguard the patent holder’s exclusive rights. To wait until a final judgment before restricting the alleged infringing conduct would condone the continuation of an unlawful situation.
In terms of broader implications, this ruling also serves as a reference for the Acer case. Regarding the same patent at issue, the expert witness who previously submitted an expert opinion was also involved in parallel litigation proceedings against Acer, and their opinion similarly faces the possibility of being excluded. Unless Acer can effectively distinguish its AVC/H.264 implementation from that of Asus at a technical level, or demonstrate a more favourable position in FRAND negotiations, the outcome of the Acer case is highly likely to align with that of the Asus case.
Case Background
The global patent litigation between Nokia and Asus and Acer began in April 2025 and has now spread to multiple countries.
In early April 2025, Nokia took the lead in filing lawsuits against Asus and Acer in Germany and at the Unified Patent Court (UPC), alleging that their computers and smart TVs infringed video coding patents;
On 11 April 2025, the dispute spread to the United States. Nokia filed lawsuits against Acer and other companies in several US federal district courts and filed a Section 337 complaint with the US International Trade Commission, seeking an import ban;
On 13 June 2025, the litigation extended to India, with Nokia filing a lawsuit against Hisense and Acer in the Delhi High Court, later adding Asus as a defendant;
In retaliation, Acer and Hisense filed lawsuits against Nokia in the High Court of England and Wales in June, followed by Asus in July;
On 7 November 2025, Acer filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Nokia in the Munich Regional Court, alleging that Nokia had infringed its standard-essential patent for 4G technology (EP 2 451 225);
On 18 December 2025, the High Court of Justice granted a provisional licence to Asus, Acer and Hisense, ordering them to pay Nokia US$0.365 for each device sold. This amount was higher than the US$0.03 originally proposed by Acer and Asus, but lower than the US$0.69 initially sought by Nokia, against which Nokia lodged an appeal;
On 22 January 2026, the First Regional Court of Munich, Germany, found that Asus and Acer had infringed a video coding technology patent held by Nokia (Patent No. EP 2774375) by implementing it in their devices without authorisation, and consequently issued a Germany-wide injunction prohibiting them from continuing to sell the infringing products.
