Samsung is being sued in Europe for infringement of the HEVC patents for video compression in smartphones and 4K TVs in a move that marks an escalation of the disputes over patent pools.

The case is being brought by patent pool administrator MPEG LA in Landgericht Düsseldorf, Germany, against Samsung Electronics GmbH.

The patents involved are essential to the HEVC (also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2) digital video coding standard. A similar fight is brewing over the patents for the next codec, VVC (also called H.266), which is now being adopted by the DVB standards group for use in European broadcast systems.

According to the court papers in Germany, Samsung Electronics GmbH’s parent Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. was both Licensor and Licensee to MPEG LA’s HEVC Patent Portfolio License from 2014 until terminating in March 2020. Since then it says Samsung has continued to offer products including smartphones, tablets and televisions in Germany that use patent protected HEVC methods without license since the termination.

However Samsung joined a separate patent pool administrator, HEVC Advanced (now called Access Advanced), in 2017 as a licensor and licensee of the essential patents.

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• Industry split over H.266 VVC video codec licensing
• DVB first to add VVC protocol for 8K video

As a Licensor, Samsung made its essential patents available through the HEVC Advance patent pool.