On August 24, 2026, InterDigital filed another lawsuit against Disney with the Unified Patent Court (UPC), alleging that the VP9 video coding technology Disney adopted in response to a previous HEVC patent injunction still falls within the scope of its patent protection. At the same time, InterDigital filed another patent lawsuit regarding Disney+’s “Up-Next” feature.

The first case was filed by InterDigital with the UPC’s Mannheim Regional Division under case number UPC_CFI_3044/2026. The patent in question is EP 2 465 265, which relates to intra-frame chrominance coding technology in video coding. This patent had previously been the focus of litigation between the two parties. On June 15, 2026, the UPC Mannheim Regional Chamber confirmed the patent’s validity, found Disney to have infringed it, and issued an injunction covering 11 member states.

The other case was filed by InterDigital with the UPC Regional Division in Düsseldorf, under case number UPC_CFI_3043/2026. The patent in question is EP 2 605 473, which relates to the “Up-Next” feature on Disney+, where the next episode plays automatically after one episode ends, without requiring the user to return to the main menu to select it.

This lawsuit marks the latest development in the patent dispute between InterDigital and Disney, which has been ongoing for over a year. Since February 2025, the two parties have been engaged in a series of legal battles in the United States, Brazil, Germany, and the UPC over technologies such as video coding, HDR, and video streaming processing. According to statistics, InterDigital has so far obtained a total of seven injunctions against Disney in Brazil, Germany, and the UPC.

Among these, the Mannheim Regional Division of the UPC ruled in favor of InterDigital regarding EP 2 465 265 in June 2026; in July, the Düsseldorf Regional Division of the UPC issued an injunction regarding EP 2 449 782, covering 11 European countries including Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, and ordered Disney to recall and permanently remove the relevant infringing technology. In both cases, the courts not only rejected Disney’s FRAND defense but also determined that Disney’s conduct did not meet the criteria of a “willing licensee.”

These successive injunctions have already had a tangible impact on Disney’s services in Germany. Previously, Disney disabled certain premium video features on Disney+ in Germany, including Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and 3D content, and subsequently disabled 4K UHD and HDR support. In early August, Disney restored some 4K UHD services using VP9. VP9 is a coding technology developed in the early 2010s that was once considered a “royalty-free” codec and supports 4K viewing (though not HDR) on certain devices.

This case will have a significant impact on the future implementation ecosystem of the HEVC standard. If Disney is able to circumvent patent licensing requirements by using VP9 without being found to have infringed, this could prompt other streaming companies to follow suit.