An injunction has been issued against Netflix ordering the streamer to end the infringement of a Broadcom HEVC/H.265 patent in Germany.
It follows a ruling by the District Court of Munich that said Netflix was in breach of the HEVC/H.265 video coding patent.
Since 2018, Netflix and Broadcom have been engaged in a wide-ranging patent dispute whereby Broadcom has accused Netflix of infringing numerous US, German, and Dutch patents through its provision of its video streaming service. The European patent at issue in this ruling, EP 2 575 366 (“366 Patent”), covers key features of digital video processing often used in HEVC/H.265 video coding.
The court, on September 19, 2023, ruled that Netflix is infringing the ‘366 Patent through its transmission of HEVC video, which Netflix employs to provide Ultra HD content to its subscribers. The resulting court-ordered injunction prohibits Netflix from providing certain video streaming services utilising Broadcom’s patented technology.
“Netflix has built a robust video streaming business that relies on Broadcom’s patented technology to deliver content to its users, and Broadcom is pleased to see this recognized by the German court,” said Mark Terrano, vice president and general manager of Broadcom’s Intellectual Property and Licensing Division.
H.265 is a video encoding format that supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD.
