The European Patent Office (EPO) has revoked a key patent held by DivX, covering technology for progressive video playback, in a decision that directly contradicts a recent ruling by the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Munich. The recent revocation by the EPO Opposition Division marks a setback for US-based company DivX in its long-running European dispute with Netflix.
The revoked patent, EP 4 213 033, protects a method for streaming media sequences from remote servers, including client-side management of byte-range requests and “trickplay” functions like fast-forwarding, rewinding, and skipping. This is the latest in a series of DivX patents to be invalidated by the EPO. In 2023, the Opposition Division revoked EP 34 67 666 for impermissible extension, a decision later upheld by the Boards of Appeal. Last August, the Enlarged Board of Appeal rejected DivX’s petition for review in that case. Furthermore, the German Federal Court of Justice dismissed DivX’s appeal against the invalidation of EP 2 661 696 in September 2025.
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UPC Rules in DivX’s Favor
DivX retains the right to appeal the revocation of EP 033 to the Technical Boards of Appeal, though the EPO’s decision stands in sharp contrast to the UPC’s ruling in a parallel case. On September 15, 2026, the second panel of the UPC’s Munich local division dismissed Netflix’s counterclaim for revocation and upheld the same patent as valid. Presiding judge Daniel Voß, together with legally qualified judges Georg Werner and Tatyana Zhilova and technically qualified judge Torsten Duhme, dismissed Netflix’s counterclaim for revocation and upheld EP 033 as granted (case IDs: UPC_CFI_465/2025 and UPC_CFI_1121/2025).
The judges held that the person skilled in the art would have had no motivation to combine the cited references to arrive at the claimed invention. On infringement, the court found that Netflix’s streaming software-including its integrated Cadmium player-indirectly infringes claim 1 of the patent. The judges held that the software is objectively suitable to carry out the patented method.
The UPC’s decision carries significant weight, as it issued an injunction prohibiting Netflix from offering or supplying the infringing software across 18 UPC member states. The court also ordered five Netflix entities—including Netflix Inc., Netflix International B.V., and subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, and France—to provide financial accounts and render statements, while declaring Netflix liable for damages dating back to May 7, 2025, when the patent was granted.
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Netflix Faces Hefty Penalties and Injunctions
The court set minimum recurring penalty payments of €5,000 per day for non-compliance with the injunction and €250 per day for breaches of the information and accounting obligations. Netflix had requested that enforcement be conditional on DivX providing security, but the court rejected this, noting that the patent expires in less than 18 months and that requiring security could undermine DivX’s ability to enforce its rights during the remaining term.
The dispute between DivX and Netflix has played out across multiple jurisdictions, including earlier proceedings in Germany, the Netherlands, the US, and Brazil. In 2022, the Mannheim Regional Court initially granted DivX two injunctions against Netflix based on EP 666, but the Higher Regional Court in Karlsruhe later stayed enforcement after the EPO revoked that patent. In the Netherlands, the Amsterdam court declined to align its judgment with Mannheim’s ruling in early 2023.
