Context: InterDigital sued Disney before the Dusseldorf Local Division, alleging that the Disney+ streaming service infringes a patent that InterDigital claims is essential to the HEVC video coding standard. Disney raised a FRAND defense, arguing that InterDigital failed to comply with the negotiation framework established in Huawei v. ZTE. Because much of the parties’ licensing negotiations had been conducted under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), a dispute arose over whether the negotiation history could be disclosed during the UPC proceedings.
What’s new: The Dusseldorf LD held that Disney could not rely on the parties’ NDA to challenge InterDigital’s compliance with the Huawei v. ZTE framework after refusing to amend the agreement to permit disclosure of the licensing negotiations under a confidentiality regime. As a result, the court treated the disputed FRAND negotiation steps as having been satisfied, finding that Disney should bear the evidentiary consequences of preventing judicial review of the negotiation history.
Direct impact: The decision strengthens InterDigital’s position in its UPC litigation against Disney by preventing Disney from relying on evidentiary gaps created by its refusal to permit disclosure of the parties’ licensing negotiations.
Wider ramifications: The Dusseldorf and Mannheim (May 5, 2026 ip fray article) rulings together suggest that UPC courts may be developing a consistent approach to confidentiality disputes in FRAND litigation.NDAs cannot be used to impede judicial review of FRAND negotiations, which is central to the Huawei v. ZTE analysis.
A broader merits victory
The Dusseldorf LD’s decision extended well beyond the parties’ dispute over disclosure of licensing negotiations. The court found that Disney infringed InterDigital’s EP2449782, (“Methods and Apparatus for Signaling Intra Prediction for Large Blocks for Video Encoders and Decoders”) a patent declared essential to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) standard, dismissed Disney’s revocation counterclaim, and granted InterDigital’s requested relief. The court also ordered that enforcement of the judgment be conditioned on InterDigital providing security of €8 million, rejecting Disney’s request for security of €500 million.
A consistent message from Mannheim and Dusseldorf
The Dusseldorf LD’s decision reinforces an approach that first emerged in the Mannheim LD’s parallel litigation between InterDigital and Disney. In both cases, the courts rejected Disney’s attempt to rely on an NDA that prevented disclosure of the parties’ licensing negotiations while simultaneously challenging InterDigital’s compliance with the Huawei v. ZTE framework.
Although Local Division decisions are not binding on one another, the two rulings suggest that UPC courts may be converging on a common approach to handling confidentiality agreements in FRAND disputes. Rather than allowing NDAs to prevent judicial scrutiny of licensing negotiations, both courts placed the consequences of the resulting evidentiary gap on the party that refused to facilitate disclosure.
The NDA as an evidentiary issue
The significance of the Dusseldorf decision lies in its treatment of the NDA as an evidentiary issue rather than merely a contractual one. Instead of viewing the confidentiality agreement as a neutral barrier to disclosure, the court concluded that Disney should bear the procedural consequences of refusing to amend the agreement after InterDigital sought permission to disclose the negotiations under appropriate confidentiality protections.
By allocating the evidentiary consequences in this way, the court avoided allowing a party to rely on the absence of evidence that resulted from its own refusal to permit disclosure. The decision therefore integrates disputes over confidentiality into the court’s broader assessment of the parties’ conduct under the Huawei v. ZTE framework.
Implications for future SEP litigation
The ruling may influence how parties approach confidentiality agreements once SEP licensing disputes reach the UPC. Rather than allowing existing NDAs to become obstacles during litigation, parties may face greater incentives to modify those agreements or rely on court-ordered confidentiality regimes that permit judicial review of the negotiation history.
While it remains too early to conclude that the UPC has adopted a settled approach, the consistency between the Mannheim and Dusseldorf decisions may encourage future litigants to treat confidentiality issues as an integral part of FRAND litigation strategy rather than as a separate procedural dispute.
Court and counsel
Court: Panel 1 of the Dusseldorf Local Division: Presiding Judge Ronny Thomas, Judge-Rapporteur Dr. Jule Kathrin Schumacher, Judge Mojca Mlakar, and Technically Qualified Judge Dr. Dennis Kretschmann
InterDigital is represented by ARNOLD RUESS’s (ip fray firm profile) Dr. Arno Riße, Dr. Lisa Rieth, Cordula Schumacher, Marius Klötzer, and Victoria Thüsing, together with Molnia Ho’s Dr. Dominik Ho and David Molnia.
Disney is represented by PENTARC’s (ip fray firm profile) Dr. Dietrich Kamlah, Dr. Christian Lederer, and Dr. Michael Schächinger, together with Zimmermann & Partner’s Dr. Joel Nägerl and Dr. Lorenz Walder-Hartmann.Â