Technology

Acer and Asus halt PC and laptop sales in Germany amid H.264 codec patent dispute — Nokia wins patent ruling, forcing tech giants to license HEVC codec

Source

Tom's Hardware

Published

Feb 14, 2026

TL;DR

AI Generated

Acer and Asus have ceased selling desktop and laptop PCs in Germany due to a patent dispute with Nokia over the HEVC codec. The injunction prohibits the sale of their products in Germany, but retailers are unaffected for now. The HEVC codec is crucial for video compression and is widely used in various technologies. Nokia alleges that Acer and Asus are infringing on its patents related to this standard, leading to the sales halt. The situation highlights the importance of licensing essential technologies like HEVC on fair and non-discriminatory terms.

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Lexar regional manager says that RAM prices are expected to double by the end of the year — 'discounts' and stabilized prices result from distributors getting rid of old stock or sourcing products from other regions

Tom's Hardware•

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1 week ago

Acer and Asus halt PC and laptop sales in Germany amid H.264 codec patent dispute — Nokia wins patent ruling, forcing tech giants to license HEVC codec

TL;DR

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Lexar regional manager says that RAM prices are expected to double by the end of the year — 'discounts' and stabilized prices result from distributors getting rid of old stock or sourcing products from other regions

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Acer and Asus halt PC and laptop sales in Germany amid H.264 codec patent dispute — Nokia wins patent ruling, forcing tech giants to license HEVC codec

TL;DR

Similar Articles

Lexar regional manager says that RAM prices are expected to double by the end of the year — 'discounts' and stabilized prices result from distributors getting rid of old stock or sourcing products from other regions

Taiwanese startup FormulaV Line wants to break into US market with two new unique cases — company expects products to become available on Newegg later this year

G.Skill explains how AMD EXPO ULL unlocks additional performance — expanded profiles allow memory makers to include subtiming tweaks for the first time

Huawei-led team claims it post-trained DeepSeek's 1.6-trillion-parameter model — 1,000 Ascend 910C chips used in training