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On December 19, 2024, the Rio de Janeiro State Court granted DivX a PI that required Hisense to disable all HEVC (H.265) technology in its TVs within 15 calendar days. That PI was based on the findings of a court-appointed expert who considered the patent both valid and infringed.

The related complaint was filed only about nine months earlier. Unlke typical Brazilian patent PIs that are based primarily on the urgent need to stop a potential infringement, this particular PI rested on a strong evidentiary foundation.

It is hardly a coincidence that this drove the settlement. When a PI is based primarily on the sense of urgency as opposed to evidence, its enforcement may be stayed, but in this case Hisense came under serious pressure. The same patent had previously been successfully asserted against Netflix, Samsung, TCL and Amazon. The Amazon PI resulted in the deactivation of the company’s 4K services and sales in Brazil.

DivX was represented by a Licks Attorneys team led by Carlos Aboim and Rodolfo Barreto.

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• ‍Context: Last spring, software company DivX won a preliminary injunction (PI) against China’s Hisense and its Toshiba-branded subsidiary in the 6th Business Court of Rio de Janeiro (April 16, 2024 ip fray article). That one was latet lifted by the appeals court pending a full expert examination of the infringement accusations.‍
• What’s new: Yesterday, DivX announced an intellectual property (primarily video patent) license agreement with Hisense that resolves all pending litigation between the companies (February 10, 2025 ip fray article).‍
• Direct impact: DivX says it “has now licensed more than 75% of the global smart TV market.”‍
• Wider ramifications: It’s remarkable that Brazil was the only jurisdiction in which there was any enforcement action by DivX against Hisense. In most other disputes, Brazil is merely one of multiple jurisdictions. Also, the dispute made Brazilian patent litigation history because it led (as discussed below) to the first merits-based Brazilian patent PI.