July 5, 2024
HEVC Advance Patent Pool Licensors have filed patent infringement proceedings against Roku, Inc. (“Roku”) for infringing patents essential to the HEVC/H.265 digital video coding standard.
HEVC Advance Patent
Pool Licensors have initiated patent infringement proceedings against Roku.
Access Advance Patent Pools announced that Roku’s streaming devices allegedly
infringe patents essential to the HEVC/H.265 digital video coding standard.
Despite long-term efforts by Advance to resolve patent infringements, Roku
remains unwilling to voluntarily legalise its sales of HEVC-capable products.
As part of their infringement suits, the pool Licensors seek payment of past
royalties from Roku and an injunction against continuing infringement.
The patent pool
currently covers 43 Licensors and over 23,000 patents, representing
approximately 75-80% of all available HEVC-essential patents. Notable industry
leaders, including Dell, Google, LG, Microsoft, OPPO, Huawei, Panasonic, Sony,
and Lenovo, are among the 320 Licensees attracted to the pool.
Access Advance Patent
Pools exist to promote innovation and reduce licensing costs and litigation by
allowing companies to obtain licenses to the essential patents of multiple
Licensors through a single agreement. By making essential technologies widely and
efficiently accessible, patent pools also allow for more industry-wide
standardization, benefiting consumers through increased interoperability of
devices. Access Advance’s Licensors take legal action only as a last resort to
ensure fair competition in the marketplace.
This legal action
aims to facilitate a level playing field for existing Licensees and uphold
patent rights in the digital video coding domain.