Context: This morning, Ericsson published its Q3 2026 financials, in which it revealed that it saw a 25% increase in IPR licensing revenue (October 15, 2026 LinkedIn post by ip fray), partly due to retroactive revenue from its cross-license agreement with Transsion (July 8, 2026 ip fray article). The company also noted that IPR licensing revenue growth opportunities “remain in new market segments” and that it will prioritize optimizing the terms and value of new agreements and renewals.
What’s new: Ericsson has become the latest major patentee to sue Disney in two jurisdictions over the alleged infringement of multimedia patents: Brazil’s 6th Business Court of the Capital District of Rio de Janeiro (case no. 3208109-52.2026.8.19.0001) and another unknown jurisdiction.
Direct impact: Disney is embroiled in several patent disputes, including with ETRI (October 8, 2026 ip fray article), IBEX (September 10, 2026 ip fray article), and InterDigital. The company has come under a lot of heat recently because of the latter dispute, which forced it to turn off some of its key streaming features following six injunctions from the UPC (September 2, 2026 ip fray article). Disney began engaging in a resilience strategy by switching to different standards or disabling functionality, but this has brought a lot of backlash from consumer groups (September 25, 2026 ip fray article), and InterDigital itself criticized it in a press release this week (October 13, 2026 ip fray article). Now that multiple major patent holders are suing Disney, the company may find itself increasingly cornered into taking a license.
Wider ramifications: Ericsson choosing to assert its patents in Brazil underlines yet again how important this venue is to major patentees’ enforcement strategies (August 18, 2026 ip fray article). The country has established itself as a go-to jurisdiction for patent enforcement, and this is also evident in the way Brazilian judges have become more outspoken on the global standard-essential patent (SEP) litigation stage (May 13, 2026 ip fray article).
In a statement today, Ericsson told ip fray:
“Ericsson has been at the forefront of video codec development for decades and has a strong patent portfolio. The streaming services of The Walt Disney Company have been using this patented technology without a license agreement. We have been negotiating with The Walt Disney Company for many years but have now turned to the courts as it became apparent that negotiations alone would not be enough. We remain hopeful that Ericsson and Disney can arrive at a business solution that will resolve the pending disputes between the parties.”
Court and counsel
Judge Victor Agustin Jaccoud Diz Torres, 6th Business Court of the Capital District of Rio de Janeiro.
Counsel for Ericsson: a team at Licks Attorneys (ip fray firm profile), including Rodolfo Barreto.