Huawei launches another major battle over streaming against Disney

Since the launch of the UPC, Huawei has increasingly changed its role from defendant to claimant in major patent disputes. With several new lawsuits against Disney over HEVC technology, the Chinese tech group once again shows its determination to defend its own patents in Europe.

Huawei filed a lawsuit against twelve companies of the Walt Disney group at the local division Mannheim. At the centre is EP 3 211 897, which protects a “method and apparatus for encoding and decoding transform coefficients” and is used in streaming. Huawei alleges that Disney infringes this patent on its streaming platform Disney+ (case ID: UPC-CFL-0000352/2026).

Meta and Facebook in cross-hairs

Parallel to the UPC action, Huawei filed two lawsuits against Disney at the Regional Court Munich. The actions have been assigned to the 7th Civil Chamber under presiding judge Oliver Schön. All three lawsuits are related to HEVC patents from the Avanci patent pool.

Furthermore, Huawei has sued Meta and Facebook over EP 3 471 419, covering “gradual temporal layer access pictures in video compression”. The patent forms part of the Access Advance pool and is related to video technology used in end devices (case ID: UPC-CFI-0000668/2026).

As with the actions against Disney, Huawei has filed the actions against Meta and Facebook at the local division Mannheim. Under presiding judge Peter Tochtermann the division is increasingly becoming a go-to venue for major high-tech and SEP cases. This popularity is partly due to the high case load at the Munich local division — a favourite court among SEP holders — as the recent establishment of a second panel in Munich has caused uncertainty for claimants over which judges will hear their cases.

At the same time, as part of the proceedings over streaming technology, Access Advance member ETRI is also conducting a lawsuit over EP 3 258 692 against Meta and Facebook. A panel around presiding judge Ronny Thomas at the local division Düsseldorf will hear the case (case ID: UPC-CFI-0002051/2025).

First-time representation

For the first time, Huawei has instructed Arnold Ruess. Partner Bernhard Arnold is representing the Chinese tech company together with associate Julius Winkler. The team works with patent attorney firm df-mp, with Dominik Ho and Ju Min Kim in charge of the technical side.

The team has already represented Avanci pool member Nokia, recently against Geely. Arnold Ruess’ patent litigators have a fair amount of experience in streaming technology cases. The team is currently acting for InterDigital in the major battle with Amazon over streaming patents.

The lawyers of the Düsseldorf IP boutique Rospatt are advising Disney. Lead partners Henrik Timmann and Max von Rospatt are representing the US entertainment company in the UPC proceedings as well as in the two actions in Munich. Associate Daria Kravchenko provides assistance. Patent attorneys Joel Nägerl und Christian Ginzel from Zimmermann & Partner are handling the technical part of the case.

In the UPC action against the Facebook group Meta at the local division Mannheim, Huawei is relying on regular counsel Tobias Hessel of Clifford Chance. The defendant Meta has retained a team from Hogan Lovells around partner Steffen Steininger. The two teams are also facing each other in the ETRI and Meta proceedings, where Hessel is acting for the plaintiff ETRI.