ASUS and Acer banned from selling PCs and laptops in Germany after court ruling
ASUS and Acer have been temporarily blocked from selling laptops and desktop PCs in Germany, following a new court ruling tied to a long-running patent dispute with Nokia. The decision doesn’t mean these products vanish overnight, but it does create real consequences for supply in one of Europe’s biggest PC markets.
The ruling comes from the Munich I Regional Court, which granted Nokia an injunction against ASUS and Acer. Under this injunction, both companies are prohibited from offering, selling, importing, or even storing affected PCs and notebooks in Germany. The core issue revolves around the H.265 / HEVC video compression standard, a technology deeply embedded in modern computers.
Nokia has enforced a sales ban
Nokia argues that both manufacturers infringed on its standard-essential patents related to HEVC and failed to act as “willing licensees” under FRAND terms (short for fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing). The court agreed with that assessment, opening the door for Nokia to enforce a sales ban. HEVC is considered unavoidable in today’s hardware ecosystem, as it’s used by integrated GPUs, operating systems, streaming apps, video conferencing tools, and media playback software. Simply removing or disabling it would severely impact the user experience.
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In practical terms, the ban applies only to the manufacturers themselves, not to retailers. That means stores like Amazon, MediaMarkt, and Saturn can continue selling existing stock. However, ASUS and Acer can no longer ship new units into Germany, which means retailer inventories won’t be replenished. In the short term, most buyers won’t notice much change. In the long term, shortages are likely if the legal situation isn’t resolved.
Acer has already confirmed that it has suspended direct sales of laptops and desktops in Germany through its official store, leaving only monitors and accessories available. ASUS has not released a formal statement, but the German online stores of both brands are currently unavailable, citing maintenance or service updates.
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