Brazilian Judge Requires Snap to Justify Within Five Days Its 'Free-Riding' Use of Dolby AV1 Patents

According to foreign media reports, Judge Milena Drumond of the First Commercial Court of the Rio de Janeiro State Judiciary issued a case management order late on April 15, requiring Snap, the operator of the social media platform Snapchat, to provide within five days (by April 20) a justification for its "free-riding" use of Dolby's AV1 patents without paying patent royalties. This order is regarded as a precursor to a preliminary injunction (PI), marking an escalation in the Brazilian patent enforcement campaign against Snap.

The incident stems from a lawsuit filed a month earlier (in March 2026). At that time, Dolby, through its affiliated licensor Access Advance Video Distribution Pool (VDP), filed patent infringement lawsuits against Snap simultaneously in the United States and Brazil, alleging unauthorized use of patents related to the AV1 and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, H.265) standards. The core dispute revolves around the AV1 standard — which was promoted as "royalty-free" when launched by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). However, in practice, many major video patent holders who did not participate in the development of the standard (such as Dolby) are not bound by AOMedia's royalty-free policy or FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) licensing commitments, and instead demand royalty payments from implementers. Access Advance had previously offered a license to Snap, but the parties failed to reach an agreement.

According to Judge Milena Drumond's order, Snap has five days to explain to the court the legal basis for its use of Dolby's AV1 patents without paying fees. If Snap fails to provide sufficient justification, the court may issue a preliminary injunction restricting Snap from using the relevant patents within Brazil. This move highlights the Brazilian judiciary's tough stance on patent infringement and reflects the growing tension between the "royalty-free" promise of the AV1 standard and the actual patent royalty demands faced by implementers.

AV1, as the video coding standard promoted by the Alliance for Open Media, was designed to break down the patent barriers of standards like H.265. However, its adoption has consistently been troubled by the "patent thicket" problem — the patent claims of numerous non-member patent holders impose implicit royalty costs on implementers. The injunction risk Snap now faces in Brazil may become another landmark case for AV1 implementers dealing with patent royalty disputes, and also provides a new judicial observation perspective on the protection boundaries of virtual goods trademarks and patents in fields such as the metaverse and streaming media.