Acer, Asus and Hisense Win UK Court Ruling in Video Streaming Patent Dispute With Nokia

Taiwanese tech companies Acer and Asus and China-based Hisense won a ruling from London's High Court on Thursday in their global patent dispute with Nokia over video coding technology.

The three companies obtained a declaration that a willing licensor in Nokia's position would agree to an interim licence until the "reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms of a patent licence were decided by the court.

Judge James Mellor said the interim licence would require Acer, Asus and Hisense to pay Nokia $0.365 per device sold, more than the $0.03 per unit proposed by Acer and Asus but less than the $0.69 sought by Nokia. English courts have recently permitted parties to pursue short-term patent licences pending trial, including in Amazon's dispute with Nokia and Lenovo's battle with Ericsson, before both ultimately settled. Samsung in June also won an interim licence in its litigation with ZTE, though that was overturned on appeal.

Disputes over the fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms of a patent licence have frequently led to global legal battles in the telecom industry. English courts can set global FRAND terms, following a landmark 2020 UK Supreme Court ruling, as can courts in China.

Mellor said in his judgment, however, that Nokia had expressed "a firm resolve to appeal" a ruling against it, including to the Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn that decision.

Acer, Asus, Hisense and Nokia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Nokia separately filed lawsuits in the United States earlier this year, alleging Acer and Asus' computers and Hisense's televisions violate its patents relating to standards which improve the efficiency and quality of streaming video. The company also filed related complaints in Europe against the same companies and settled a separate streaming-video patent dispute with Amazon.