The Brazilian court approved the expert report of the digital video company DivX and implemented the previous preliminary injunction against Netflix, ordering Netflix to pay approximately US$3.27 million to the court accrued and retroactive fines, the case will now enter the full trial stage.
It is understood that DivX is suing Netflix for infringement of its patent number PI 0506163-6, which targets a “deblocking” tool implemented in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) encoded files. DivX says Netflix’s streaming in HEVC infringes the patent.
It is noted that DivX stated in its brief to the court requesting a preliminary injunction that the case was “the longest patent infringement lawsuit in Brazil’s information technology field” and had been filed in October 2020. This delay “only This may be attributable to the defendant’s deliberate delaying behavior.” The interim injunction was granted in November 2020 and confirmed with modification in May 2022. Although Netflix was ordered to deposit the accrued fine amount into an account, it appealed and the court withheld the deposit until actual violations could be proven.
DivX called the ruling “an important message from the Brazilian judiciary to Netflix and all other companies that think they can infringe Brazilian patents with impunity.” The company also noted the court’s warning that “disrespectful behavior” will be leading to additional punitive measures.
