InterDigital accelerate battle against Amazon in Europe, Brasil and the US

InterDigital announced yesterday that it has initiated litigation against Amazon over alleged ongoing infringement of its intellectual property. The company filed cases with the US Federal District Court in Delaware, the Rio de Janeiro State Court, the Munich Regional Court and the UPC local division of Mannheim.

In total, InterDigital asserted the infringement of ten patents, including EP 2 548 372 and EP 3 240 285 at the Mannheim local division. At the Munich Regional Court, the NPE sued for infringement of EP 2 875 487. All patents-in-suit relate to video content compression and picture quality improvement through high dynamic range (HDR) technology. InterDigital claims Amazon infringes these through devices including FireTV and Kindle, and through services including Prime Video.

“Our preference is always to sign licenses through amicable negotiation,” said Josh Schmidt, Chief Legal Officer at InterDigital. “But Amazon’s decision to initiate litigation against InterDigital earlier this year shows that Amazon is more interested in litigating than negotiating.”

Patent battle reaches unprecedented heights

Both companies had long attempted to conclude a licence, but without success.

Initially, Amazon sought a declaration of non-infringement at the High Court, alleging that InterDigital had abused a dominant position. Amazon also sought declarations concerning InterDigital’s obligations under the ITU-T FRAND commitment (case ID: HP-2025-000043).

Although Amazon had not applied for an interim licence at that stage, it hinted it might. InterDigital successfully asked the UPC (case ID: UPC_CFI_936/2025) and Munich Regional Court (case ID: 21 O 12112/25) to prohibit Amazon through the first ever ex parte anti-interim-licence injunctions from making such an application in the UK.

In early October, both courts found that compulsory interim licences violate the fundamental right to enforce patents. Shortly after, UK High Court judge Richard Meade responded to the German AILIs. Meade issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the patent holder from taking legal action in other countries to block UK interim-licence proceedings (case ID: HP-2025-000043).

Next meeting in three days

However, the ruling does not prevent InterDigital from conducting patent infringement proceedings before any court or enforcing any resulting judgments or measures.

At the end of October, Richard Meade heard the two opponents again and decided to accelerate the RAND trial. The UK High Court will hear this trial in September 2026. Even if the UPC local division Mannheim and Munich Regional Court were to hear InterDigital’s RAND trials extremely quickly, their decisions would likely only come after the UK judgment.

The two opponents will meet again next Friday in Mannheim. The UPC local division will again hear InterDigital’s AILI application, but this time Amazon will be heard.

At the Mannheim local division, the bench comprises presiding judge and judge rapporteur Peter Tochtermann, legally qualified judge Dirk Böttcher and legally qualified judge András Kupecz.

Hogan Lovells and Bird & Bird

In the German proceedings and at the UPC, litigators from Arnold Ruess and patent attorneys from df-mp represent the NPE. In the UK proceedings, InterDigital retains a team from Bird & Bird, led by Richard Vary.

The Arnold Ruess team comprises partners Cordula Schumacher and Arno Riße, counsel Lisa Rieth and associates Benjamin Schnäbelin, Victoria Thüsing and Tuğçe Altun. Patent attorneys Dominik Ho, David Molnia, Alexandre Hoffmann and Nikola Wiesemann are involved on the df-mp side.

In the German AILI proceedings, Amazon has relied on Klaus Haft of Hoyng ROKH Monegier. It is likely that Haft will also handle the defence for Amazon in the newly filed German and UPC main cases.

In the UK, Amazon relies on a Hogan Lovells team led by Paul Brown.