Nokia vs. Amazon: Patent dispute threatens Fire TV sales

The Munich Regional Court has ruled in Nokia’s favor in a patent dispute between Nokia and Amazon. The ruling enabled Nokia to at least stop the sale of some Fire TV devices in Germany. The background to the case is license fees for video patents that Nokia wants to receive from Amazon.

Dispute over video patent

Since 2023, Nokia has been suing Amazon in several countries because it believes its patents in the area of ​​the H.264 and H.265 video compression methods, which Amazon uses for video streaming via Fire TV devices, have been infringed. Amazon had previously refused to pay the requested amount of license fees to Nokia because they were significantly higher than usual in the industry. Nokia therefore demanded a sales ban for some Fire TV devices as well as damages, the amount of which is not known.

Amazon will appeal

The Munich Regional Court has now ruled in Nokia’s favor, but this does not automatically mean that sales of Fire TV devices will be stopped. Nokia must enforce this with an injunction. Even then, according to current knowledge, not all Fire TV devices would be affected, as not all of them use the Nokia patent with the number EP2375749. It is not yet known which devices are affected. If a later court decides against Nokia, the company would have to compensate Amazon for the loss of revenue it suffered. Enforcing a sales stop therefore also carries a risk for Nokia.

Amazon can and will, as confirmed to ComputerBase, still appeal against the ruling, which is not yet available in written form.

Amazon charges fees for overpayments

Amazon has already commented on the ruling and believes it is wrong, but does not deny that it is using the disputed patent without paying license fees. Rather, it believes that the amount demanded by Nokia is excessive. Nokia has so far turned down offers of license payments from Amazon. Nokia is also legally obliged to license patents on a fair basis. How high these fees can be is something that will probably be decided now, and sometimes by the courts. Nokia sees the ruling by the Munich Regional Court as confirmation of its position.

The IPfray blog, which specializes in patent litigation, quoted Nokia’s Chief Licensing Officer New Segments, Arvin Patel, as saying: “The Munich Regional Court has ruled that Amazon uses Nokia’s patented video-related technologies in its consumer streaming devices and sells them illegally without a license. The court also found that Nokia acted fairly in its negotiations with Amazon“.

A clarification could also be made in Great Britain, where a court hearing on this issue is also pending in 2025.

We believe the Munich Regional Court’s decision is wrong and are confident that the situation will be resolved soon. The ruling will not affect existing customers and a wide range of Fire TV devices will continue to be available on Amazon.de. We are always willing to pay a fair price for patent licenses and have worked with a number of companies to license video patents of this type. Nokia demanded more than all of these companies combined and rejected our fair and industry-standard offer. We regret that Nokia is trying to limit choice for customers.

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No impact on existing buyers

Even if Nokia enforces a sales ban, this will not affect owners of Fire TV streaming devices. Their range of functions will not be restricted or limited, but can be used as before.