Disney has turned off the HEVC video format on Disney+ in Brazil after a Rio de Janeiro court granted Huawei a preliminary injunction over a video coding patent. Disney filed an appeal on 22 October asking for the order to be suspended, according to ip fray.
The 6th Business Court of the Capital District of Rio de Janeiro granted the injunction on the strength of a court expert’s report. It set a R$5 million (about $1 million) penalty for non-compliance and reportedly gave Disney 24 hours to comply. The patent covers methods for encoding and decoding intraframe prediction modes.
Disney’s appeal
Disney argues that the court closed the evidence phase without letting the expert answer its objections, that the streamed files are encoded outside Brazil, and that its encoders do not use the largest block size named in the patent claim. It says it made a licence offer for Huawei’s HEVC patents on 17 July, which Huawei refused, and calls the shutdown a precaution rather than an admission. Huawei’s position has been reported only through Disney’s filing.
More fronts opening
Ericsson sued Disney before the same Rio court on 15 October, saying Disney’s streaming services use its patented video technology without a licence after years of negotiations. Ericsson has since filed complaints at the Unified Patent Court in Europe. Ericsson reported a 25% rise in licensing revenue for the third quarter.
Disney is also fighting InterDigital, whose injunctions in Germany and at the UPC led it to switch off 4K and HDR there for a period, and IBEX, which won a separate Brazilian injunction in September. Consumer groups in France and the wider EU have demanded compensation for lost picture-quality features.
Streaming services that once treated codec licences as a back-office cost are now seeing features switched off market by market.
What to watch
- The Rio appeals court’s decision on Disney’s request to suspend the Huawei injunction.
- Whether Disney takes a licence, either bilaterally or through a patent pool where Huawei is a licensor.
- Early rulings in Ericsson’s Brazilian and UPC cases.
