Via LA strikes out against Amazon at Düsseldorf Regional Court

As an implementer, Amazon has faced some of the most extensive litigation. Now patent pool Via LA has also launched a new series of lawsuits against the US tech giant. Amazon is currently embroiled in an intense dispute with InterDigital over other video coding patents.

Three licensors of the HEVC pool —  and Tagivan II — have filed three lawsuits against Amazon at Düsseldorf Regional Court. This is according to a press release from law firm Cohausz & Florack, which regularly advises Via LA on patent law.

The three pool members had previously sued Microsoft at the same court. A total of seven lawsuits were pending here. However, Via LA and Microsoft reached an agreement in early October.

Via LA has now filed three new lawsuits against various Amazon subsidaries. While Chamber 4a under presiding judge Tilmann Büttner deals with the two cases filed by M&K Holdings and Gensquare (case ID: 4a O 61/25 and 4a O 62/25) Chamber 4b under presiding judge Carsten Haase took over the claim filed by Tagivan. All three cases have now been served on Amazon. They concern Amazon devices capable of playing 4K content, such as Amazon’s Fire TV and similar products that utilise HEVC technology.

When contacted, the Regional Court of Düsseldorf informed JUVE Patent that Tagivan has filed a lawsuit concerning three patents, while M&K Holdings and Gensquare each filed lawsuits concerning two patents. The court now has the option of splitting individual patents into separate proceedings. It is reasonable to assume they are the patents that Via LA has already asserted against Microsoft.

Amazon has faced an increasing number of patent lawsuits in Europe over the past few months. The US company is currently engaged in an extensive dispute with InterDigital over a licence for its global video coding and decoding portfolio. InterDigital has not yet filed infringement suits, but it did recently obtain two anti-suit injunctions from Munich Regional Court and the UPC local division Mannheim. These prohibit Amazon from seeking an interim licence from another court. The UK High Court responded with an order prohibiting InterDigital from taking action against a RAND-rate determination in the UK.