Acer and ASUS have been ordered by a German court to stop selling laptops and desktop computers directly in the nation. This follows a patent infringement decision that favored Nokia. The Munich I Regional Court’s ruling, which was made public on January 22, has already compelled both dealers to take their goods down from their German internet stores.
The injunction is based on Nokia’s standard-essential patent claims pertaining to H.265 video coding (HEVC). After the court determined that Acer and ASUS had not acted as willingly, Nokia obtained injunctive relief.
HEVC is highly ingrained in modern platforms: OS systems, streaming services, video conferencing applications, dedicated GPUs, integrated graphics units, and media engines in SoCs all support the codec. Although it might be possible, a PC without these features would be difficult to sell in real life. As a result, the ruling impacts a significant portion of the product line rather than specific models.
Hisense, a party to the initial action, has already negotiated a license and achieved an arrangement with Nokia. Acer intends to file an appeal against the ruling. An appeal has not yet been confirmed by Asus.
According to a report by Videocardz.com, Nokia asserts that a number of HEVC-related patents, including EP 2 375 749, were submitted to the Unified Patent Court in Germany as part of a larger licensing campaign.
In order to get around similar restrictions, Hisense acquired a license from Nokia in early January 2026. Since product pages and purchase choices are presently not available on the German websites of the manufacturers, the decision has an impact on direct sales channels.
In order to get around similar restrictions, Hisense acquired a license from Nokia in early January 2026. Since product pages and purchase choices are presently not available on the German websites of the manufacturers, the decision has an impact on direct sales channels.
What are Nokia’s H.265 patents, and what company said about the court ruling
Nokia has a sizable collection of patents related to video technology. In addition to other patents pertaining to the broader video pipeline, such as how encoding and decoding are implemented in hardware and software, streaming and delivery optimizations (including CDN related technology), adaptive bitrate playback, error resilience, video processing, and real-time video features used by apps and services, this includes standard essential patents linked to popular video codecs like H.264, H.265 (HEVC), and H.266 (VVC).
”We seek fair compensation for the use of our technology. We hope that Acer, Asus and Hisense will soon agree to accept a licence on fair terms, just like many of their competitors have done. Our door is always open for good faith negotiations”, Nokia said in a statement.
Appeals and licensing will determine the next actions. A negotiated license is still a straight path to returning to regular sales, and Acer and Asus have indicated that they intend to contest the ruling.
How German customers can now buy Acer and Asus PCs and laptops
The injunctions target Acer and Asus as producers rather than sellers of goods. won’t instantly vanish from German shelves. Retailers may continue to sell their existing inventory, but normal OEM channel replenishment may be halted while enforcement and appeals are pending.
Certain Acer or ASUS models might still be available at stores like Amazon, MediaMarkt, or Saturn, although the selection might get smaller if direct shipments are stopped. The decision will not impact current owners, who are free to keep using their gadgets. The disagreement is not over a product recall, but rather about sales and distribution.
The dispute demonstrates how reliant PC makers are on technology that are intricately woven into software and processors. As early as 2025, Dell and HP discontinued hardware support for HEVC in specific notebook models, ostensibly to reduce licensing expenses. However, considering how common the codec is, this cannot be a solution.
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Whether an appeals court suspends enforcement or if the parties agree on license payments will determine whether Acer and Asus may soon resume sales.
