Acer and Asus have been told to suspend the sales of products such as laptops and desktop operated personal computers on the German market after a court ruled against them with regards to a licensing dispute with Nokia according to reports.
The dispute, which was heard in Munich Regional Court on Jan. 22, 2026 revolved around Nokia's standard-essential patent claims with regards to video coding. A Standard Essential Patent is a patent that protects an invention essential to the implementation of a particular technology standard, as per the official definition given by the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
As per reports, the three companies Asus, Acer and Hisense stood accused of infringing on the copyright law regarding Nokia's High Efficiency Video Coding patents, patent EP2661892 in particular being brought up. The court ruled that these firms will no longer infringe these patents via using the same methods to manufacture their devices. The court found Acer and Asus to not be willing licensees under the fair, reasonable and non discriminatory licensing framework.
Known as video codecs, this tech facilitates large video files to be shared over networks by reducing their file size.
Hisense has chosen to pay Nokia for the patent rights while Asus and Acer have decided to appeal the decision.
"Acer respects the intellectual property of other companies and organizations. Following a ruling by the Munich I Regional Court (Case No. 7 O 4100/25 of January 22) between Nokia and Acer, we have had to temporarily suspend our sales activities in Germany for the affected products. At the same time, we are examining the possibility of pursuing further legal action to reach a fair solution as quickly as possible," Acer told PC Welt.
"While the proceedings are ongoing, we cannot comment on any further details. Numerous product categories, such as monitors, routers, e-scooters, and accessories, remain unaffected by the ruling and are available," it added.
This does not mean that Germans won't be able to buy their products in stores, since the injunction is directed towards manufacturers and not retailiters, who can sell their current inventory. Complications may arrive when original equipment manufacturers are not able to replenish the supply if the injunction continues.
"We hope that Acer, Asus and Hisense will soon agree to accept a license on fair terms, Just like many of their competitors have done. Our door is always open for good-faith negotiations," Nokia said in a blog post.
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