Context: Various Access Advance licensors are presently enforcing High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, H.265) standard-essential patents (SEPs) against Chinese smartphone maker (and African market leader) Transsion. NEC (in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Brazil), JVC (in Brazil) and Sun Patent Trust (in the UPC) were the first three companies to enforce (July 17, 2025 ip fray article). Huawei joined them in the UPC (August 4, 2025 ip fray article). Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) is the most recent plaintiff from those ranks, asserting EP3258692 (“Method for inducing prediction motion vector and corresponding apparatuses”) in the UPC (see the last bullet point in section 5.1 of our most recent (August 17, 2025) UPC Roundup).
What’s new: Another ETRI lawsuit over the same patent (EP’692) has now surfaced in the UPC’s Dusseldorf Local Division (LD). It was formally filed on August 7, 2025, and the defendants are from the Hisense group, along with what appears to be a Dutch Hisense distributor.
Direct impact: Hisense can try to settle this dispute with ETRI on a bilateral basis or by taking an Access Advance pool license.
Wider ramifications: Hisense is presently also defending against Nokia’s SEP enforcement (June 13, 2025 ip fray article), which is unrelated to the HEVC Advance pool. Earlier this year, Hisense took a license from DivX, apparently due to pressure in Brazil (February 11, 2025 ip fray article).
Panel: Presiding Judge Ronny Thomas, Judge Dr. Bérénice Thom and Judge Stefan Johansson (Stockholm, Sweden; he presides over the Nordic-Baltic Regional Division).
Counsel for ETRI: like in the Transsion cases, Bardehle Pagenberg’s patent pool tag team: Dr. Volkmar Henke and Dr. Tilman Mueller (“Müller” in German).
Counsel for Hisense has not entered an appearance yet.