German versions of the Asus and Acer websites are back offline after a patent dispute took them down late last week. German publication ComputerBase has been monitoring the situation and saw both websites come back just hours ago at the time of publication. Tom's Hardware was able to confirm Asus.de and Acer.de are accessible now, though with some limitations.
Asus' website has been almost fully restored. The German page loads and includes all of the support pages where you can download drivers, BIOSes, and other materials; one of the major issues with these websites being taken offline. However, Asus has removed the laptop and desktop sections from its main navigation, which were two categories affected by the patent dispute.
Acer's German website loads a page that reads, "We are currently performing maintenance," with a link to Acer's German support page. The Acer store is back online in Germany, as well, though with a decreased inventory and a banner across the website that states the following:
"Some Acer products are currently unavailable in Germany. Therefore, you will not find product information for these models on our German website at this time. If you are using such an Acer product in Germany, you will, of course, continue to receive future software updates. Many other exciting products are still available – discover them here now. We hope you enjoy browsing. If you have any further questions, our customer service team is always available to assist you."
Like Asus, Acer is not offering its laptops or desktops for sale through its official website at this time.
In statements to Tom's Hardware, both Asus and Acer confirmed that, following court order, they will no longer offer direct sales of products that infringe on Nokia's patents. Retailers are not impacted at this time, and both companies say they will continue to offer support to German customers.
Although Nokia is best known for its mobile prevalence in the early oughts, this dispute centers around the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. Otherwise known as H.265, Nokia is the patent holder, and a German court determined that Asus and Acer (along with TV brand Hisense) would need to purchase a license to continue to sell and import their devices in Germany.
The case isn't focused on specific products, but it ended up impacting laptops and desktops, as they carry HEVC support. Components like GPUs are unaffected.
Asus tells Tom's Hardware that it's "evaluating and pursuing further legal action to reach a fair resolution as soon as possible," and Acer echoed that sentiment saying, "we are reviewing additional legal options in order to reach a fair solution as quickly as possible." The German court issued a temporary injunction against Acer and Asus, leading to an immediate suspension of sales following the ruling.
It's hard to say where we go from here, but it's unlikely we've heard the last of Nokia's dispute with Asus and Acer yet. At the very least, the websites are back online, providing critical support to customers in Germany that have otherwise been blocked the past several days.
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