Samsung smartphones, 4K TVs sued for infringement in Europe

Samsung has been sued in Europe for infringing HEVC patents on video compression for smartphones and 4K TVs, a move that marks an escalation in the patent pool dispute.

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According to the latest report, patent pool manager MPEG LA is filing a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co. in Dusseldorf, Germany. The patents involved are critical to the HEVC digital video coding standard.

A similar struggle is brewing over the patent for the next-generation codec, VVC, which is currently being adopted by the DVB standards group for use in European broadcast systems.

According to court documents in Germany, Samsung Electronics, the parent company of Samsung Electronics in Germany, was the licensor and licensee of MPEG LA’s HEVC patent portfolio license from 2014 until its termination in March 2020.

Since the termination of the agreement, Samsung has continued to offer products in Germany including smartphones, tablets, and TVs that use the patented HEVC method without permission.

However, Samsung joined an independent patent pool manager, HEVC Advanced (now called Access Advanced), in 2017 as a licensor and licensee of the essential patents.