Nokia patent lawsuit: Acer and Asus must stop PC sales in Germany
Acer's website is offline in Germany, Asus has removed all desktop PCs and notebooks. The reason is a patent lawsuit by Nokia.
(Image: Andreas Wodrich / heise medien)
Patent lawsuits filed by Nokia against the two PC manufacturers Acer and Asus are leading to a sales ban. Acer's website, including its online shop, is completely offline in Germany with an apology: "Please excuse the inconvenience." Asus has set all desktop PCs and notebooks in Germany to "out of stock" in its own online shop, but continues to sell other hardware and peripherals.
However, all Asus websites are no longer accessible from Germany outside of the store. The manufacturer displays a "We’ll be back" message there. This is particularly annoying if you are looking for a BIOS update for a mainboard, for example. Users currently have to use a VPN tunnel outside of Germany for this.
Retailers are still allowed to sell their stored desktop PCs and notebooks from Acer and Asus, but will not receive any replenishment for the time being. Such an escalation usually leads to a prompt settlement. In the worst case, however, there could be temporary poor availability.
No FRAND agreement reached
At the end of January, Munich Regional Court I heard the two cases 7 O 4100/25 (Acer) and 7 O 4102/25 (Asus) together. The cases concern patent EP2375749 for the H.265 video codec, also known as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding). The patent describes a method for efficiently adjusting frame rates based on reference images in a video. Since processors and graphics cards process video streams, PC manufacturers must license relevant patents. Based on the same patent, Nokia already enforced a sales ban against Amazon's Fire TV sticks in 2024. In March 2025, both companies reached an agreement.
The court concluded that Acer and Asus were willing to license, but the parties were unable to reach an agreement. Two of the problems: Nokia apparently wants to use complete PCs or notebooks as the cost basis, rather than just the CPU or GPU that processes the video codec. This would drive up licensing costs. In addition, the evaluation of FRAND-compliant license offers is vague. FRAND stands for Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory and describes framework rules for fair licensing agreements. The court apparently considered Nokia's demands to be fair, as other companies pay the set licenses, but only after lawsuits.
At the same time, proceedings are underway before the UK High Court, which considers lower license fees to be fair and has temporarily set them until the hearing. However, the Munich court interprets this only as an offer that could ultimately turn out to be higher.
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Preliminary enforcement against million-euro payment
Nokia has had the ruling against Acer and Asus provisionally enforced, thus forcing the sales ban. Since a higher court can overturn the ruling, Nokia must deposit several million euros as security.
Acer confirmed in a statement to PC-Welt that it is already considering "the use of further legal means". Both Acer and Asus are likely to appeal the ruling. The Munich I Regional Court is considered plaintiff-friendly in patent law.
Asus has published a statement saying that its German website will remain temporarily offline. The manufacturer also writes:
"All after-sales services in Germany remain fully operational, and existing customers will continue to receive uninterrupted support in full compliance with the current court order. Asus is evaluating and pursuing further legal action to reach a fair resolution as soon as possible. Asus continues to stand by its position and remains committed to our customers and partners."
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