HMD faces new UPC complaints brought by Orange and Navigate

Context: HMD’s most well-known standard-essential patent (SEP) dispute at the moment is with VoiceAge EVS (May 5, 2025 ip fray article). HMD also has yet to settle a licensing dispute with Huawei. And two months ago we reported on an Indian court hearing where it turned out that HMD initially offered, for the purposes of a deposit, only 1.5% of the royalties sought by Dolby (March 20, 2025 ip fray article).

What’s new: Two new patent infringement actions against HMD have surfaced in the public case registry of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). French telecommunications carrier Orange and U.S. licensing firm Navigate LLC are suing HMD in the Paris and Munich Local Divisions (LDs), respectively. Navigate is asserting a Dolby patent, suggesting that this litigation is effectively related to the Indian case.

Direct impact & wider ramifications: HMD rather frequently has to defend against enforcement actions by companies that have already licensed the largest part of the smartphone market. Some of them, like Orange and Huawei, are actually operating companies that know what the shoe feels like on the other foot.

Orange v. HMD (Paris LD)

The patent-in-suit, EP2345029 (“Method, computer program and device for decoding a digital audio signal”), is related to CELP (Code-Excited Linear Prediction). That technique is used for multimedia applications and voice calls, the latter suggesting that HMD’s patent woes in voice encoding now involve another standard in addition to EVS.

Panel: Presiding Judge Camille Lignières, Judge Carine Gillet and Judge Margot Kokke (The Hague, Netherlands).

Navigate v. HMD (Munich LD)

The patent-in-suit, EP3204943 (“Transmission-agnostic presentation-based program loudness”), was obtained by Dolby, and Google Patents still lists Dolby as the assignee.

Panel: Presiding Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann, Judge Tobias Pichlmaier and Judge Margot Kokke (The Hague, Netherlands).