Huawei Sues Roku at UPC Mannheim
December 17, 2025
Huawei filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Roku, Inc. at the UPC Mannheim Local Division on October 21, 2025, alleging infringement of its HEVC SEP EP3471419 B1, titled “Gradual temporal layer access pictures in video compression.”
Prior to Huawei’s lawsuit, Dolby and Sun Patent Trust ( the SPT) had separately initiated legal proceedings against Roku at the UPC Munich LD in May and June 2024, respectively. On January 23, 2025, the two parties further filed requests for provisional measures against Roku.
Huawei is also a licensor of the HEVC Advance patent pool, like Dolby and SPT. The patent EP3471419 B1 is a SEP for the HEVC video coding standard and relates to encoding, decoding, and bitstream processing.
In the case, Huawei’s lawsuit focuses on Roku’s streaming hardware devices and does not involve licensing disputes over streaming content, similar to the claims brought by Dolby and SPT.
This legal action follows Huawei’s previous patent enforcement efforts targeting Amazon, HP, and Transsion for alleged HEVC patent infringement. All three companies have since joined the HEVC Advance pool.
In its prior disputes with Dolby, Roku has consistently sought balanced remedies from U.S. courts, including requesting U.S. judicial determination of FRAND licensing rates for the patent pool.
In December 2024, Roku filed a lawsuit against Dolby, SPT, and Access Advance LLC in the District of Massachusetts. The complaint sought a ruling on whether the licensing offers from the three parties were FRAND, and if not, then to set a global FRAND rate.
However, in an official statement dated July 28, 2025, Access Advance confirmed that the District Court of Massachusetts had dismissed Roku’s lawsuit. Judge Stearns determined that the Court does not have jurisdiction to set a global FRAND rate as requested by Roku.
Following the setback in the U.S., Roku suffered another major defeat at a German court last month.
In an official announcement on November 24, 2025, Access Advance disclosed that Dolby had secured a historic interim injunction against Roku from the Munich Regional Court I in Germany. This marks the first time a German court has issued a preliminary injunction for the SEP EP2777270, and a landmark ruling for SEP enforcement in Europe.
Access Advance emphasized that the preliminary injunction represents a breakthrough in SEP enforcement in Europe. In this case, Roku’s pursuit of anti-suit relief and an interim license in a U.S. court combined with a recent ruling by the German Federal Court of Justice upholding the asserted patent’s validity opened the window for urgent action by Dolby.
Against this backdrop, Huawei’s decision to join the fray and sue Roku may further pressure the U.S. streaming company to consider joining the HEVC Advance patent pool as a path to resolving these disputes.
Huawei is represented by Dr. Volkmar Henke, Bardehle Pagenberg. Roku is represented by Dr. Andreas Kramer, Powell Gilbert LLP.