Context: Last week, Access Advance reported a 100% renewal rate among companies who could have terminated their license agreements by the end of last year (January 22, 2026 ip fray article). Only a minority of Advance’s license deals involve litigation.
What’s new: Four new patent lawsuits by Access Advance licensors against Meta (Facebook) have become discoverable. ETRI is asserting one patent against Meta in the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Dusseldorf Local Division (LD) and two in the Munich I Regional Court, seeking a preliminary injunction (PI) in one case. Philips is also asserting a patent in Munich.
Direct impact: The PI motion in Munich could end the dispute rather quickly. Otherwise, the Philips case would go to trial on June 18, 2026 anyway.
Wider ramifications:
- The Munich I Regional Court has just recently granted a PI over a standard-essential patent (SEP) (November 20, 2025 ip fray article).
- That court continues to go from strength to strength (January 2, 2026 ip fray article).
- Meta is now also defending against a multi-billion-dollar patent infringement action in the U.S. (January 26, 2026 ip fray article).
ETRI v. Meta UPC case
Case no. UPC_CFI_0002051/2025. EP3258692 (“Method for inducing prediction motion vector and corresponding apparatuses”).
Panel: Presiding Judge Ronny Thomas, Judge-rapporteur Daniel Severinsson (primarily assigned to the Munich seat of the UPC’s Central Division), and Judge Dr. Jule Schumacher.
ETRI v. Meta Munich PI case
Case no. 21 O 62/26. EP2723078 (“Image decoding apparatus”). That patent was upheld by the Federal Court of Justice of Germany on December 18, 2025 (case no. X ZR 167/23), making it a particularly strong one for PI purposes.
This matter is before the 21st Civil Chamber, whose new Presiding Judge Dr. Hubertus Schacht will start next week (January 16, 2026 ip fray article).
ETRI will have to convince the court that Meta’s FRAND defense does not require a deeper analysis than what the court can do in the course of PI proceedings. But when the relevant licensing terms have been accepted by the wider market, and depending on Meta’s pre-litigation conduct, that hurdle may indeed be surmountable.
Munich main proceedings
- Philips v. Meta, case no. 7 O 16353/25, EP2950543 (“Adaptive coding of the prediction error in hybrid video coding”). Hearing date: June 18, 2026.
- ETRI v. Meta, case no. 7 O 16160/25, EP3637774 (“Method for inducing prediction motion vector and corresponding apparatuses”). Hearing date: December 10, 2026.
These cases are before the 7th Civil Chamber (Presiding Judge Dr. Oliver Schoen (“Schön” in German), Judge Katalin Tözsér, and Judge Dr. Florian Schweyer.
Counsel for ETRI and Philips
Attorneys-at-law: Clifford Chance’s (ip fray firm profile) Dr. Tobias Hessel, Lea Prehn, and Dr. Lisa Philipps.
Patent attorneys: df-mp’s (ip fray firm profile) Dr. Dominik Ho and team.