In-depth reporting and analytical commentary on intellectual property disputes and debates. No legal advice.

Nokia won race to Brazilian courthouse against Warner Bros. Discovery by 66 seconds: Rio de Janeiro, not São Paulo, will decide

Florian Mueller

Context: Yesterday, Nokia filed infringement lawsuits over video-streaming patents against Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in the United States, the Unified Patent Court (UPC), Germany, and Brazil (November 1, 2025 ip fray article).

What’s new: This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article with a breathtaking story that also suggests the parties had some sort of standstill agreement in place. Nokia’s first infringement action of this series was filed with a Rio de Janeiro court two seconds after midnight, one minute and six seconds prior to WBD’s complaint for declaratory judgment (DJ) in São Paulo. WBD’s DJ action targets a list of Nokia patents. The two cases overlap with respect to the patent Nokia is enforcing in the two-seconds-after-midnight case: BR112013002029-6 on a method and apparatus for providing entropy encoding with balanced complexity in video encoding.

Direct impact: In accordance with Art. 43 of Brazil’s Code of Civil Procedure, the earlier-filed case of two overlapping ones takes precedence, typically resulting in a stay of the other. Unlike in the United States, where an earlier filing date can, but due to a multifactorial balancing exercise won’t necessarily, make the difference in a venue fight, it is a rather hard and fast rule in Brazil, without much room for exceptions. The Rio de Janeiro court is far more experienced with patents, particularly also patents related to standards (though this is arguably not a standard-essential patent (SEP) case given that only encoding, but not decoding, claims are at issue).

Wider ramifications:

  • A similar race could have taken place at the UPC last year, with Pfizer filing a revocation claim against a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) patent nine seconds after midnight as it anticipated an infringement (re)filing by the latter, which did not come (December 13, 2024 ip fray article). Reposting our report on LinkedIn, Pfizer’s counsel adapted a famous song: “I’m working late / ’cause I’m a UPC representative” (item 3 of our December 15, 2024 UPC Roundup).
  • Litigation logistics also impressed us in connection with Novo Nordisk’s near-simultaneous pursuit and enforcement of 29 preliminary injunctions in Germany (October 31, 2025 ip fray article).
  • This year, Brazil has played a key role in, or even been the primary driver of, settlements involving implementers such as Hisense (February 11, 2025 ip fray article), BYD (September 25, 2025 ip fray article), and MediaTek (October 9, 2025 ip fray article). As a result, implementers increasingly devise and execute defensive strategies in that emerging jurisdiction.

The following screenshot (emphasis added) shows that the fiing of Nokia’s case was accepted by the court at 00:00:02 AM:

And this is WBD’s filing, confirmed only at 00:01:08 AM:

Almost two hours later, the second Nokia lawsuit was filed (no. 0988152-20.2025.8.19.0001), and it was assigned to Rio because of its connection with an already-pending litigation against Paramount over that patent (subpixel interpolation).

Practically, the only way one can file a lawsuit shortly after midnight is that one prepares everything beforehand and performs the last click required for the submission just after midnight. Nokia’s first Rio case (no. 3018523-30.2025.8.19.0001) was to Judge Milena Angélica Drumond Morais Diz (Escavador profile). WBD’s DJ case (no. 4053943-78.2025.8.26.0100) and assigned to Judge Gustavo Cesar Masutti (Escavador profile).

Gone in 66 seconds (a reference to the Gone in 60 Seconds Hollywood movie, which was produced by a Warner Bros. competitor, though).

DJ scope

The exemplary Nokia patents listed in WBD’s DJ complaint are, besides the above-mentioned BR112013002029:

  • PI0214410 (“video encoding and decoding method, video encoder and decoder, computer program product, and video signal”)
  • PI0011748 (“encoding and decoding method and apparatus, wireless communication apparatus with embedded encoder, and video codec”)
  • PI0304565 (“compensated motion prediction method for use in digital video sequence encoder, encoder and decoder to encode / decode a digital video sequence using video terminal, and video codec”)
  • PI0110770 (“method of encoding / decoding a video signal representing an image sequence, and video encoder / decoder”)
  • PI0211263 (“video encoder interpolation method, video encoder for encoding an image and communications terminal”)

The DJ complaint seeks a FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) license, contrary to what two U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC or ITC) judges who found in a case involving Amazon (item 1 of our February 11, 2025 article).

Standstill is only plausible reason for midnight filings

For the midnight timing of the filings, no explanation can be found with regard to any of the relevant patents, such as that the formal date of grant had to be awaited. A former license agreement did not exist. The DJ complaint mentions that the parties started discussing a license in 2023 and claims that WBD is a willing licensee, which every defendant would argue and which will not matter here if there is no FRAND licensing obligation in the first place.

A coincidence being implausible, the fact that both parties sought to file their complaints as soon as possible after midnight on November 1, 2025, suggests that there was a standstill agreement in place to faciliate negotiations. The progress of those talks apparently disappointed Nokia.

The standstill must have covered a period including Halloween. It is not unusual for contract terms to end at the end of a month or year.

In the weeks ahead we will see whether WBD also brought revocation actions with the UPC’s Central Division, and if so, whether Nokia’s infringement filings came first. In Germany, this is a non-issue. An infringement action would take precedence over a DJ case even if the DJ complaint comes earlier.

Counsel

Licks Attorneys’ Gabriel Mathias is the partner in charge of Nokia’s Brazilian cases, with founding partner Carlos Aboim overseeing.

Nokia’s complaint was also signed by

WBD’s DJ complaint was filed by Dannemann Siemsen’s Eduardo da Gama Camara Junior, Natália Barzilai, Ronaldo Lopes Stoffel, Ana Luiza Brito, Rodrigo de Assis Torres, Juliana Coelho, and Fabiano Lemos dos Santos Alves Gonzaga.