Context:
- Yesterday, Access Advance announced significant progress for its Video Distribution Pool (VDP) as four new licensors, among them Sharp, joined the pool and an independent microeconomic study confirmed that the pool’s license fees are comfortably within the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) range (March 23, 2026 ip fray article).
- Many video streamers are unlicensed. As a result, standard-essential patents (SEPs) as well as patents that are not subject to a FRAND pledge are being enforced.
- Snapchat is an action-oriented messaging platform over which a mostly young user base exchanges more than 5 billion photos and videos every single day. Video has become the primary medium on the app, accounting for roughly 90% of all content shared in what Snap calls Snapchat Stories and a significant portion of direct (user-to-user) messages. Snapchat also has a video feed named Spotlight that generates over 400 million videos per day. Snapchat is the leading service for video messaging. One of its key features is that messages are ephemeral, and when users know that messages disappear, they can just record and share instead of polishing them. Snapchat is operated by Snap, a publicly trade company (market cap of aproximately $7.5B, far below its $100B+ peak in 2021).
What’s new: VDP licensor Dolby has filed video patent enforcement complaints against Snap in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware and in the Rio de Janeiro State Court. The patents-in-suit read on the Big Tech-led, supposedly but not practically royalty-free AV1 (Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) Video 1) and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, H.265) standards. In Delaware, a filing was made after hours, and the complaint became accessible this morning. The Brazilian cases are publicly discoverable. There are two cases in Rio over two patents each, one case for AV1 and one for HEVC, presumably in order to keep the cases manageable and separate any potential FRAND arguments.
Direct impact:
- There is no FRAND pledge in place with respect to AV1 as Dolby never participated in the development of that standard. And the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) FRAND pledge governing HEVC does not cover encoding (but only decoding) claims.
- In Delaware, Snap faces the risk of a substantial damages award and an injunction with respect to AV1. In Brazil, both remedies are being sought for all patents, and preliminary injunctions (PIs) could come down soon.
- Snap needs to give serious consideration to a VDP license. It may have been misled by the Big Tech players behind the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) into thinking that a standard advertised as “royalty-free” has obtained full clearance. But video codec (encoding and decoding) standards do not exist in a vacuum. The practical reality is that codecs use some of the same (or at least very similar) techniques, making it inevitable that those engaging in research and development in the field hold patents even on standards to which they never contribute. That is far less likely with respect to cellular telecommunications standards like 5G (where there is also much less parallel development).
Wider ramifications:
- In similar disputes, implementers declining to take a license have sooner or later been sued in injunction-centric patent jurisdictions like the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the Munich I Regional Court. That would not be inconceivable here.
- Dolby v. Snap is the first AV1 lawsuit against a video streamer. The Brazilian AV1 case mentioned above is apparently only the second AV1 patent suit in that country. Dolby previously sued Chinese consumer electronics maker Skyworth as we reported earlier today. In that case, the accused instrumentalities are devices, not services, and Dolby’s relevant patents are available for licensing through a Sisvel pool.
- The Alliance for Open Media was also the target of an EU antitrust investigation (which ended without any penalties or consent order) as there were complaints or at least concerns over large technology companies like Google abusing their enormous market power to force patent holders to give up their rights to fair compensation.
- Some other companies operating platforms on which large numbers of users share and consume video content are VDP-licensed. ByteDance (TikTok) and Tencent (WeChat) are both licensors and licensees of the VDP (July 1, 2025 ip fray article).
The press release mentioned further above quotes Peter Moller, the CEO of Access Advance, as follows:
“When companies implement advanced technologies without securing the appropriate licenses, they undermine the collaborative framework that enables innovation.
“Enforcement actions like this one enable innovators to defend their intellectual property rights and ensure that they’re properly compensated for their work.”
As Dolby did not participate in the development of the AV1 standard, it did not (as it did not have to) make any promises with respect to licensing AV1 implementations. That means it is not bound by AV1’s “royalty-free” policy, which is a Big Tech dream facing a reality test not only in the litigations mentioned in this article. Dolby is not even bound by any FRAND pledge because any of its FRAND pledges for video patents relate to standards in the development of which it was involved. As a result, there is no contractual FRAND (much less royalty-free) defense to Dolby’s pursuit of injunctive relief.
With respect to the discrepancy between the way AV1 is promoted and the way patent licensing actually works, Mr. Moller said the following:
“The legal framework around video codecs is well established, and incorporating patented technology carries clear licensing obligations. Labeling a codec ‘royalty-free’ does not eliminate underlying patent rights.
“This action reflects a straightforward principle. Companies that benefit from patented technologies must respect the rights of those who
developed them.”
U.S. case
D. Del., case no. 1:26-cv-00317 (Dolby Video Compression LLC v. Snap Inc.)
U.S. patents-in-suit
The patents were originally applied for by General Electric (GE). Dolby acquired GE’s video patent business two years ago (June 6, 2024 ip fray article).
- U.S. Patent No. 10,855,990 (“Inter-plane prediction”)
- U.S. Patent No. 9,924,193 (“Picture coding supporting block merging and skip mode”)
- U.S. Patent No. 9,596,469 (“Sample array coding for low-delay”)
- U.S. Patent No. 10,404,272 (“Entropy encoding and decoding scheme”; over this one Dolby is seeking an AV1 injunction)
U.S. counsel
Counsel for Dolby: McKool Smith’s Kevin Schubert, Warren Lipschitz, Mitch Verboncoeur, Robert Burns, Christopher McNett, and Greg Saltz; as well as Farnan LLP’s Brian E. Farnan and Michael J. Farnan.
Brazilian cases
In both cases, a PI has been requested according to the public-facing part of the court docket. The filings were made shortly after 8:30 PM Brazilian Time on Monday (March 23, 2026).
Brazilian AV1 case
Case no. 3043830-49.2026.8.19.0001 (Dolby Video Compression, LLC v. Snap Inc.)
1st Business Court of Rio de Janeiro: Judge Milena Angélica Drumond Morais Diz
Brazilian HEVC case
Case no. 3043250-19.2026.8.19.0001 (Dolby International AB v. Snap Inc.)
3rd Business Court of Rio de Janeiro: Leonardo de Castro Gomes
Brazilian counsel
In Brazil, Dolby is being represented by a team at Licks Attorneys (ip fray firm profile with numerous SEP achievements): Rodolfo Barreto, Bruno Falque, Amanda Terra, and Élcio de Lacerda.