Acer and Asus have temporarily stopped selling desktop and laptop PCs in Germany after a German court granted Nokia an injunction prohibiting the sale of their products. According to HardwareLuxx [machine translated], the two manufacturers are prohibited from “offering, placing on the market, using, or importing or possessing such devices in Germany.”
While this might seem as though their products would disappear from store shelves overnight, that is unlikely, as German retailers are unaffected by the ruling. Most consumers would not experience this in the short term, as many retailers still have Asus and Acer computers in stock. However, given that the two companies cannot import new units to replenish their warehouses, we expect a shortage of these brands in the medium term, unless the German court concludes the lawsuit sooner or they reach a deal with Nokia.
The High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) or H.265 video compression standard is at the heart of this case, with Nokia alleging that Acer, Asus, and the TV manufacturer Hisense are infringing three patents relating to the standard. Hisense decided to purchase a license from the company in January, but Acer and Asus are still fighting out the allegations in court.
HEVC is considered a standard-essential patent (SEP) due to its widespread use. This technology is supported by almost all integrated GPUs, discrete GPUs, and SoCs and is essential to many operating systems, streaming applications, video conferencing services, and other software. Although there are alternatives such as AV1, not implementing HEVC on a PC would significantly impact the user experience, making it virtually a requirement for every computer manufacturer.
This wasn’t a problem for OEMs before, as their suppliers typically covered all license requirements for using specific technologies. However, it appears that both Acer and Asus have encountered issues in their HEVC implementation, prompting both companies to suspend sales of all affected products. Because of HEVC’s SEP status, Nokia must license it on FRAND or Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory terms. Although the two companies state that they respect intellectual property, Germany has a stricter interpretation of FRAND regulations and has determined that both infringe Nokia’s patents.
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