Patent ruling: Acer and Asus temporarily suspend notebook sales

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Acer and Asus

For more than a decade, Patent ruling: Acer and Asus temporarily suspend notebook sales, Nokia has been taking legal action against manufacturers of smartphones and notebooks in Germany. The accusation: patent infringements. Nokia was repeatedly awarded a right at the Munich Regional Court. So also at the end of January in a lawsuit against Acer and Asus. The effects are now visible: The DE websites are "off".

Acer and Asus have infringed patents

As Juve Patent already reported at the end of January, the court followed the request to prohibit Acer and Asus from distributing notebooks that allegedly infringed three Nokia patents related to video streaming (EP 2 375 749, EP 2 774 375, EP 2 661 892), albeit only partially for the time being.

All three patents are related to the codec H.265. While the proceedings on EP 2 375 749 and EP 2 774 375 have not yet come to a conclusion, the court has granted Nokia's urgent application with regard to EP 2 661 892 for the time being.

Acer and Asus cease sales

Both manufacturers are therefore no longer allowed to distribute allegedly affected products in Germany for the time being – not via their own online shop, but also not via intermediaries. It was assumed that Nokia will make this claim.

Both manufacturers actually stopped their direct sales at the end of last week, although the plug was pulled very rigorously at the weekend: both the Acer homepage and the Asus homepage are currently no longer accessible in Germany, only an error message is displayed. If you are currently looking for a new BIOS for your motherboard from Asus, for example, you have to manually call up a different country presence or use a VPN.

However, external retailers such as MediaMarkt or Notebooksbilliger are still allowed to sell existing goods. Hisense, accused by Nokia in the same lawsuit in the spring of 2025, had in turn acquired a license in January. The company's own smart TVs can therefore also be resold in Germany. Acer and Asus have so far refused this.

This time again the sticking point: FRAND

When it comes to the amount of royalties, it is always crucial whether the affected patents fall under the so-called FRAND regulation. FRAND stands for "Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" and thus for special licensing conditions for patents, in which the patent holders receive fees from the users of a standard in a gentle manner that does not unnecessarily endanger the acceptance of the standard. In addition to the actual patent infringement, the amount of the license fee is therefore always the subject of negotiations in court with regard to FRAND. In this context, the Regional Court of Munich has established itself as an address in Germany that is often visited by complaining companies.

There is now a press statement from Asus. Interestingly, the Group does not hold out the prospect that the German website will be generally available again soon. The assumption that the website was only a short-term collateral damage from the discontinuation of the distribution of products affected by the judgment may not be true. Or, in the end, it is simply extremely complex to eliminate the large number of affected systems (PCs, notebooks, NUC, handhelds) that may no longer be distributed from the total offer.

If you are looking for a BIOS or a driver for your product, it will still not be easy to reach the corresponding page without redirecting to the German version and thus blocking.

ASUS has temporarily suspended its official website and online store in Germany following a Munich I Regional Court ruling (case no. Munich I – 7 O 4102/25) related to a patent dispute with Nokia. The suspension, resulting from a temporary injury, affects select ASUS PCs and products using High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC).

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.

Asus is currently considering further legal steps to reach a fair solution to the current conflict with Nokia "as soon as possible". As a result, Asus does not plan to simply give up and pay license fees that have been considered too high so far.