Rio Court conditions Disney’s patent injunction compliance on consumer protection

Context:

• IBEX PT Holdings is pursuing a patent infringement action against Disney before the Sixth Business Court of Rio de Janeiro concerning HEVC video compression technology used by Disney+. Following a preliminary injunction, Disney proposed a technical workaround to comply with the order, raising questions about its impact on subscribers.
• Disney previously disabled premium streaming features in Germany and France (September 25, 2026 ip fray article) following InterDigital patent injunctions (July 23, 2026 ip fray article), prompting demands for compensation and threatened class-action litigation over reduced service quality without corresponding price reductions (October 16, 2026 ip fray article).

What’s new: The Rio court has authorized Disney’s proposal to disable temporal motion vector prediction (MVP) functionality, following a favorable assessment by the court-appointed expert. The court rejected IBEX’s request for more extensive technical verification but required Disney to document its compliance measures and demonstrate that the workaround would not harm subscribers or, if it did, Disney would provide appropriate compensation.

Direct impact: Disney must submit a compliance report confirming that its content catalog has been adjusted and demonstrate to the court that its workaround does not harm subscribers, IBEX, or third parties, or that appropriate consumer compensation is provided. Failure to satisfy these requirements could result in the injunction being deemed unfulfilled and expose Disney to further sanctions.

Wider ramifications: The order, issued on October 20, 2026, illustrates a different role for consumer interests in patent enforcement. Rather than serving solely as grounds for limiting an injunction, potential consumer harm can also justify additional obligations on the defendant implementing it. This approach suggests that courts may scrutinize not only whether a technical workaround ends infringement, but also whether its implementation unfairly shifts the consequences of enforcement onto consumers.