New Delhi: In some reports, it has claimed that Nokia has forced Asus and Acer to stop selling their PCs and laptops in Germany after the court ruling confirmed the news in the region. These brands’ actions to sell their PCs in Germany have been brought through by the German court, which has been ordered on the basis of a patent infringement case filed by Nokia. This case has been going on for a while, and the Munich Regional Court made its decision back in January, forcing Asus and Acer to stop selling their products in the country, without affecting their existing stock on shelves and across online platforms.
Nokia’s case of patent infringement is linked to the H.265 video coding format that the company has promised has been misused by Acer and Asus, by not paying the former for using the technology in their products. Patent filings and ownership cases are not new, and in Germany itself, Nokia has a similar ruling announced against Oppo and OnePlus for infringing its 4G and 5G patents in the country and not renewing the license agreement in 2021. The ban was later rolled back, and now Acer and Asus will have to go via a similar legal process to get the permission to sell their devices in the region once again.
The HEVC codec is linked to the display products that can handle video processing, and it provides better streaming quality across these devices by using both hardware and software integration. The court ruling has been a very interesting twist that these companies may use to their advantage. Asus and Acer have also stated that as manufacturers, they can sell their products via third-party online and offline stores, at least till the stocks are available. The ban comes into effect across the company stores, and also stops them from bringing more units to the shelves for the buyers.
