Dolby sues Snap over video codec patents tied to AV1 and HEVC

The takeaway: For years, the industry has touted AV1 as the codec capable of sidestepping the royalty and litigation thicket surrounding HEVC. Now, a new lawsuit from Dolby Laboratories against Snap suggests that assumption may have been overly optimistic. The case highlights how emerging codecs remain vulnerable to patent disputes.

In a complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware, Dolby accuses Snap of infringing four video compression patents through Snapchat's use of both HEVC and AV1. The filing argues that AV1 implementations incorporate proprietary inventions that Dolby never licensed on royalty-free terms and that the same technologies already appear in HEVC.

A key point in Dolby's complaint is that AOMedia does not control all the patents used in AV1 implementations and that the codec's specification was completed after many foundational video coding patents had already been filed. Dolby is seeking a jury ...