Context: Yesterday, a settlement over audio codec standard-essential patents (SEPs) between Philips and Chinese Africa-focused smartphone maker Transsion became known thanks to a Delhi High Court (HC) hearing (July 16, 2025 ip fray article). A few hours later, three High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) SEP cases against Transsion surfaced:
- a first NEC v. Transsion case in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) (link);
- a second HEVC-related NEC v. Transsion UPC case (link); and
- a first HEVC-related Sun Patent Trust v. Transsion UPC case (link).
What’s new: We’ve now also tracked down two Brazilian cases, one filed by NEC on June 18, 2025, and one by JVC dated June 23, 2025.
Direct impact & wider ramifications: Scheduling orders came down a few days later in both cases and suggest that the plaintiffs’ objective is to obtain merits-based preliminary injunctions (PIs) that would take a little longer to obtain than ex parte PIs, but would then be particularly hard for Transsion to get lifted. The pattern bears a strong resemblance to a DivX v. Hisense PI that came down in late 2024 and spurred a settlement (February 11, 2025 ip fray article). Just like DivX in that case, NEC and JVC are being represented by a Licks Attorneys team led by Carlos Aboim and Rodolfo Barreto.
After the Philips-Transsion settlement it was possible that the UPC cases showed up despite Transsion having taken multimedia patent licenses not only from Via LA but also from Access Advance. However, the UPC and Brazilian cases are all still active as we have been able to confirm.
In the 5th Business Court of Rio de Janeiro, NEC is asserting Brazilian patent BR 122020015658-9 (“Video coding device and video decoding method”). On June 27, 2025, the judge ordered a preliminary assessment of the merits by a court-appointed expert “in the shortest possible time” (which would probably mean approximately a month). Transsion has already acknowledged that procedural decision.
JVC’s case is pending in the 1st Business Court of Rio de Janeiro. The patent-in-suit is BR 112014023933-9 (“Image decoding device, image decoding method and receiving device”). An expert report was ordered here as well. The order came down on July 11, 2025, and no lawyer had entered an appearance for Transsion yet when this article was written.