InterDigital VC Holdings v The Walt Disney Company (CFI, 24 July 2026)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

In a decision of 23 July 2026, given in the joined cases UPC_CFI_87/2025 and UPC_CFI_488/2025, the Düsseldorf Local Division held that eleven Disney group companies infringe, through the Disney+ service, claims 5 and 17 of InterDigital VC Holdings’ EP 2 449 782 (signalling of intra prediction for large blocks in video coding), dismissed the counterclaim for revocation and rejected the FRAND defence. It granted an injunction in eleven States, recall, removal and information, but made enforcement of the injunction, recall and removal conditional on security of EUR 8 million. The decision matters for video technology litigation: encoding claims outside the scope of the HEVC standard do not open the Article 102 TFEU defence, and a party that blocks production of the negotiation history by relying on a non-disclosure agreement bears the consequences.

Facts and procedure

InterDigital complained of the streaming on Disney+ of HEVC-encoded bitstreams (paragraphs 6 to 12). The defendants sought revocation of claims 5 and 17, raised the FRAND defence and asked for security of at least EUR 500 million before any enforcement. A non-disclosure agreement covered the prior negotiations.

The applicable law

Validity is assessed under Articles 54, 56 and 123(2) EPC, the FRAND defence under Article 102 TFEU and Huawei v ZTE, which the UPC applies under Articles 20, 21 and 24 UPCA (paragraph 318), remedies under Articles 63, 64, 67, 68 and 82(2) UPCA.

Question

Is the patent valid and infringed, can the FRAND defence succeed for claims outside the standard, and which remedies should be ordered?

Decision

Construing the claims in the light of the H.264 standard, the Division found no added matter, novelty over D1 to D4 and inventive step starting from D1 to D5, the proposed combinations being hindsight cherry-picking from self-contained coding schemes (paragraphs 150 to 311). The Disney+ bitstreams embody the claims, subsequent entropy coding of the binary split syntax element being irrelevant (paragraphs 312 to 316). The FRAND defence fails: there is no dominant position, as the HEVC standard excludes the encoding process from its scope and the defendants did not show a de facto standard, moreover, the FRAND declaration covers only essential claims (paragraphs 317 to 341). Even applying Huawei v ZTE, the defendants, having refused to amend the non-disclosure agreement, must bear the impossibility of examining the notice and the offer, which are presumed compliant. They are unwilling licensees and provided no security after their counter-offer was rejected (paragraphs 342 to 378). An injunction was granted with penalties of up to EUR 10,000 per day per bitstream, and recall, removal and information from 6 December 2017 with penalties of up to EUR 5,000 per day, use of the information is limited to calculating damages and identifying other infringers, and access is restricted by a Rule 262A order (paragraphs 379 to 409). An interim award of damages was refused. Liability and infringement were declared (paragraphs 410 to 412). Security for enforcement was set at EUR 8 million, InterDigital VC Holdings not having shown its own solvency, while Disney’s EUR 500 million figure was unsubstantiated (paragraphs 413 to 419). InterDigital bears 10% of the costs of the infringement action, Disney the rest and the costs of the counterclaim. The ceiling is EUR 800,000 and each action is valued at EUR 8 million (paragraphs 420 to 425).

Key points for practice

• An encoding claim, outside a standard that only defines decoding, confers no dominant position by reason of the standard (paragraphs 328 to 332).
• Losing technical advantages when designing around is not enough to establish a de facto standard (paragraphs 333 to 336).
• A party refusing to lift a non-disclosure agreement that prevents production of the negotiation history bears the consequences in the Huawei v ZTE assessment (paragraphs 352 to 370).
• Practical point: a subsidiary proprietor suing should evidence its own solvency or a parent company undertaking to avoid security for enforcement (paragraph 417).

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Arts 20, 21, 24, 25(a), 63, 64, 65(5), 67, 68, 69 and 82(2)

Rules of Procedure

Rules 9.1, 19, 36, 118.5, 118.8, 131.1(c), 141, 190.1, 191, 262A, 263.1 and 354.4

European Patent Convention

Art. 54, Art. 69, Art. 123(2), Art. 138(1)(c)

Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012

Arts 24(4), 71a(2)(a) and 71b(1)

Other provisions

Protocol on the Interpretation of Article 69 EPC, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Art. 102, Directive (EU) 2016/943, Art. 2(1), Directive 2004/48/EC, Art. 3

Case law cited

10x Genomics v Nanostring, Court of Appeal, 26 February 2024, VusionGroup v Hanshow, Court of Appeal, 13 May 2024, Mammut v Ortovox, Court of Appeal, 25 September 2024, Abbott v Sibio, Court of Appeal, 14 February 2025, expert e-Commerce v Seoul Viosys, Court of Appeal, 2 October 2025, Seoul Viosys v expert e-Commerce, Court of Appeal, 5 November 2025, Meril v Edwards, Court of Appeal, 25 November 2025, Amgen v Sanofi, Court of Appeal, 25 November 2025, NUC v Hurom, Court of Appeal, 27 March 2026, Fujifilm v Kodak, Court of Appeal, 13 July 2026, Kodak v Fujifilm, Court of Appeal, 14 October 2025, EOFlow v Insulet, Court of Appeal, 29 January 2026, Ballino v Kinexon, Court of Appeal, 26 August 2024 (UPC_CoA_328/2024), InterDigital v Disney, Mannheim Local Division, 16 June 2026, Dolby v Beko, Düsseldorf Local Division, 18 March 2026, Panasonic v OPPO, Mannheim Local Division, 22 November 2024, Huawei v Netgear, Munich Local Division, 18 December 2024 (UPC_CFI_9/2023), Kaldewei v Bette, Düsseldorf Local Division, 3 July 2024, CJEU, Huawei v ZTE, 16 July 2015, C-170/13, CJEU, Tomra, C-549/10 P, CJEU, IMS Health, C-418/01

Related decisions

• InterDigital VC v The Walt Disney, 19 November 2025, earlier order in the same joined cases.

Prepared by Dhenne Avocats from the official decision, consulted on 10 October 2026. The database is updated every week, on Friday. Only the official text is authoritative.