On September 15, 2026, the Second Chamber of the Munich Regional Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) issued its first-instance judgment in the DivX v. Netflix patent infringement case: Netflix’s streaming software infringes on European Patent EP 4 213 033 held by DivX, and an injunction was issued across all 18 UPC member states; simultaneously, the court dismissed Netflix’s counterclaim seeking to invalidate the patent. This judgment diverges from the preliminary opinion issued by the European Patent Office (EPO) during the relevant opposition proceedings, and Netflix has indicated its intention to file an appeal.
Case Background
The patent dispute between DivX and Netflix over video streaming technology has been ongoing for several years. As early as 2019, DivX filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Netflix in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking damages exceeding $400 million. Since then, the patent battle between the two parties has spread to multiple jurisdictions, including Brazil and Germany: In 2020, DivX sued Netflix in Brazil; in 2022, DivX filed a lawsuit with the Mannheim Regional Court in Germany, with the patents in question including EP 3 467 666.
However, DivX’s previous efforts to enforce its patents in Europe have not been entirely smooth. In the dispute over patent EP 3 467 666, a German court initially granted DivX’s request for an injunction, but Netflix promptly filed an opposition with the EPO, and the patent was ultimately revoked by the EPO. Additionally, a lawsuit filed by DivX in Germany regarding another patent, EP 2 661 696, was dismissed due to the loss of the patent’s legal basis.
The patent at issue in this case is EP 4 213 033, titled “Video Distribution System Including Progressive Playback.” The patent was granted on May 7, 2025, and Netflix promptly filed an opposition with the EPO in February 2026.
DivX’s request for an injunction in this case is extremely broad, covering 18 UPC member states, including Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Austria. DivX argues that the infringement is not constituted by Netflix’s servers directly executing the patented method, but rather by the software provided by Netflix to users, which enables end devices to implement the patented progressive video playback technology, thereby constituting indirect infringement.
Discrepancy in Rulings Between the UPC and the EPO
The judgment shows that the EPO’s Opposition Division issued a positive opinion on the patent in question on July 3, 2026. Regarding the assessment of inventive step, the EPO held that a person skilled in the art would have been motivated to introduce a request queue to handle access requests for different byte ranges of video files and to clear redundant requests after the user triggers a new playback command.
In the UPC litigation, Netflix cited the EPO’s aforementioned opinion, as well as a preliminary opinion previously issued by the EPO Technical Board of Appeal regarding another related DivX patent, EP 3 467 666, to argue that the patent in question lacked inventive step.
However, the Munich Regional Chamber did not accept this line of defense. The court noted that the EPO’s opinion did not explicitly demonstrate why a person skilled in the art, based on the prior art, would have a technical motivation to reconstruct the request queue following a user action. Therefore, the EPO’s preliminary opinion was insufficient to overturn the court’s finding of inventive step for the patent in question.
The court ultimately upheld the validity of Patent EP 4 213 033 and dismissed Netflix’s counterclaim for invalidation; it also found that Netflix’s software at issue constituted indirect infringement and issued an injunction throughout all 18 UPC member states.
According to the judgment, in addition to immediately ceasing the relevant infringing acts, Netflix must also submit detailed information regarding the infringing acts since May 7, 2025, including the sources of the products and software, distribution channels, developers and business partners, as well as sales and usage data. The court also held Netflix liable for damages resulting from the infringement; the specific amount of damages will be determined in subsequent proceedings.
Full text of the judgment attached
