Hisense settles global dispute with Nokia over video coding patents

The Regional Court Munich confirmed to JUVE Patent that Nokia has withdrawn its lawsuits against Hisense (case IDs: 7 O 4104/25 and 7 O 4105/25). This follows a licensing agreement, which Nokia announced today in a press release. The settlement resolves all patent-related litigation between the parties across all jurisdictions.

Under the agreement, Hisense will make royalty payments to Nokia. It is the first patent licence agreement between the parties. They have agreed to keep the terms confidential.

The settlement also terminates parallel proceedings at the UPC’s Munich local division (case ID: UPC_CFI_294/2025). While the register does not yet show a withdrawal of the lawsuit, new — albeit not publicly accessible — documents appeared on 5 January. These are likely the application to withdraw the claim.

Hard-fought technology

Video coding has in recent years become as hard-fought an area of technology in global patent disputes as mobile communications. Currently several multi-jurisdictional battles are playing out at national courts and the UPC, such as Broadcom vs Netflix, InterDigital vs Amazon, Nokia vs Paramount and — until the parties settled in March last year — Nokia vs Amazon.

In November, during a presentation to investors at Nokia’s Capital Markets Day in New York, Patrik Hammarén, president of technology standards at Nokia, said the following about patent licensing and consumer electronics: “In our Consumer Electronics program, we primarily license the use of our video and wifi technologies in devices such as tablets, laptops, and connected TVs. This is also an important pillar of our expansion areas, and we have market leading coverage here too. Over the past year we have signed agreements covering the use of our technologies in HP’s, Amazon’s Samsung’s, Casio’s and GoPro’s products just to name a few.”

Video codec in focus

In spring 2025, Nokia filed patent claims against Acer, Asus and Hisense at the UPC and Munich Regional Court over video codec patents. Nokia alleged that Acer and Asus’ PCs and Hisense’s smart TVs infringe EP 2 375 749, EP 2774 375, and EP 2 661 892, all relate to the H.265 video codec standard. While proceedings concerning EP 749 and EP 375 are pending at the Regional Court Munich, Nokia filed an action regarding EP 892 at the UPC local division Munich.

The lawsuits against Acer (case IDs: 7 O 4101/25, 7 O 4101/25 and UPC_CFI_293/2025) and Asus (case IDs: 7 O 4102/25, 7 O 4103/25 and UPC_CFI_289/2025) remain pending.

In a parallel UK action, the implementers asked the High Court to determine a RAND rate for Nokia’s video streaming portfolio. Just before Christmas, UK High Court judge James Mellor granted an interim licence to Acer, Asus and Hisense (case IDs: HP-2025-000030, 000032, 000039). While the case against Hisense remains “active” in the UK court files, its conclusion following the settlement appears imminent.

US proceedings

Nokia also filed separate US lawsuits in spring 2025, claiming Acer and Asus’ computers and Hisense’s televisions infringe its SEPs. The Finnish patent holder filed against Acer in the District Court for the Western District of Texas (case ID: 1:25-cv-00523), while the Asus case is pending in the District Court for the Central District of California (case ID: 2:25-cv-03053). Nokia brought the case against Hisense in the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Hisense responded in late October 2025 with a patent infringement suit against Nokia over several US patents at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (case ID: 2:25-cv-01091). The court dockets note a “Notice of Voluntary Dismissal by Hisense” dated 24 December 2025.

Long-standing representation

From the outset, Nokia relied on a cross-border team from Bird & Bird. While Düsseldorf partner Christian Harmsen led the German and UPC proceedings with the support of Tobias Wilcke, Richard Vary represented the Finnish client in the UK SEP proceedings.

Patent attorneys Christoph Walke, Fabian Vogelbruch and Lars Grannemann of Cohausz & Florack advised on technical matters.

A Nokia team comprising Head of Global Litigation and Disputes Clemens Heusch, Lead Litigation Counsel EU Armin Schwitulla, Director, Head of Litigation Operations Huw Edwards and Head of Litigation Risk Management Taliah Walklett handled the lawsuits internally.

Hisense turned to Hogan Lovells partners Steffen Steininger, Benjamin Schröer and Andreas Schmid for German and UPC proceedings, while Kirkland & Ellis represented Hisense in the UK through London partners Peter Pereira and Daniel Lim.