On November 3, the Munich Regional Court ruled that Disney infringed a patent held by InterDigital, granting InterDigital the right to seek an injunction. The patent in question supports technology enabling the dynamic overlay of a second video stream containing subtitles onto a first video stream. Disney may appeal this ruling.

Since February this year, InterDigital has announced enforcement actions against Disney (and its subsidiaries Hulu and ESPN+) for multimedia standard essential patents (SEPs) in multiple jurisdictions. Courts involved include the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the State Court of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the Munich Regional Court in Germany, and the Mannheim and Düsseldorf chambers of the Unified Patent Court (UPC). Patents at issue include EP 2 465 265, EP 3 259 902, EP 2 080 349, and EP 2 449 782.

In response, Disney filed FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) and antitrust lawsuits against InterDigital in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging that InterDigital illegally monopolized video compression patents in the U.S. and abroad and demanded excessive patent royalties for technologies used in its Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ streaming services.

On May 27, 2025, the Mannheim Regional Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) issued its first anti-injunction stay (AASI) against Disney, prohibiting Disney from seeking any injunction that would interfere with the enforcement of patent claims and rulings within the UPC. Disney was ordered to withdraw all related applications already filed and barred from initiating legal proceedings based on such applications.

On May 28, 2025, U.S. District Judge Wesley L. Hsu of the Central District of California dismissed two motions: InterDigital's motion to dismiss Disney's FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) counterclaim in the U.S., and Disney's motion for an injunction seeking to block InterDigital from enforcing a Brazilian injunction.

In September 2025, the Seventh Court of the Judicial District of the State Capital of Rio de Janeiro issued a preliminary injunction (PI) against Disney concerning two patents related to Advanced Video Coding (AVC/H.264) and High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) technologies.

In October 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an amicus brief in Disney's antitrust lawsuit, emphasizing that standard-essential patents (SEPs) do not inherently confer market dominance and require careful antitrust application.