Codecs and Software Patents - Part IV - Things Got So Bad That Some Laptop Sales Got Banned in the EU (Over Software Patents!)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 08, 2026,
updated May 08, 2026

Blame the European Patent Office (EPO) as well. Meanwhile, the EPO continues granting such patents illegally (corrupt people created illegal policies) while setting up an illegal patent tribunal where Nokia staff serve as judges^*!

We recently began a series that looks into the state of video and audio compression as it relates to software patents in continents that aren't meant to have any such patents (the patent offices, however, cheat the system to make more money by granting such monopolies regardless). In Part I we gave some background, whereas Part II and Part III spoke of some recent developments.

"As recently as two or three years ago, you had to be a compression geek to choose and deploy a new codec for publishing your content," Jan Ozer wrote 2 years ago. "Today, in mid-2024, you need to be part patent attorney, part CFO, and it helps if you know a bit about compression."

They created a legal minefield. It is 100% about software patents - i.e. patents that are not supposed to even exist!

More recently, as we noted before (2020), Dolby attacked the supposedly 'free' option after Dolby had already attacked GNU/Linux distros with patent claims unrelated to codecs. Dolby is a very malicious patent aggression giant (sleeping giant) and until recently almost nobody talked about it.

Hiding behind a paywall is the observation that, as usual in Europe, Nokia is involved ("InterDigital, Dolby, Nokia fuelling spike in AV1 litigation").

In the past we wrote a great deal about InterDigital, a giant patent troll.

As Legal News Feed put it several weeks ago: "AV1 Codecs Royalty-Free Future Questioned by Dolby's Lawsuit Against Snap"

We'll focus some more on Nokia at a later point. For now, however, it seems clear that Nokia's actions with patents have prevented the sales of particular computers in Germany.

As TechSpot put it, "Acer and Asus ordered to halt PC sales in Germany after Nokia wins HEVC patent ruling"

There's more coverage here here and there (lots more out there). It made a splash at the time^**, along with articles that relate to the said codecs.

If software patents lead to such severe outcomes, shouldn't the media pay closer attention to the problem? █

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^* "EPO patent examiners and Boards of Appeal members cannot simultaneously hold part-time UPC judge positions due to conflicts of interest," said Team UPC's propaganda site JUVE. But somehow at the UPC we see patent judges with a very a obvious conflict of interest, e.g. UPC judges employed by companies including Nokia, Bose, 3M, Orange, CSL Behring, and Airbus. Should they put the logos at the door?

^** Sadly a lot of the articles about this cite a paid shill who fronts for notorious patent trolls.