From Bitstreams to the HEVC Standard: Notes on InterDigital v Disney

Can an encoded video bitstream constitute a “product” under patent law?

Is the encoding process itself part of the HEVC standard?

While reading the UPC Mannheim Local Division’s decision in InterDigital v Disney (UPC_CFI_86/2025, 16 June 2026), the above two questions stood out.

1. Can a Bitstream Be a “Product”?

The patent at issue included not only method claims directed to video encoding, but also a claim directed to an encoded video bitstream.

The Court first held that:

“the encoded bitstream according to claim 15 of the patent-in-suit is a product in the meaning of Art. 25(a) UPCA”

This aspect of the decision is particularly noteworthy.

When one thinks of a “product”, the term usually brings to mind something tangible, such as a device, a chip, or a storage medium. The Court, however, approached the issue from the perspective of data processing rather than physical embodiment.

As the judgment states:

“For the purposes of data processing, there is no relevant difference between data sequences stored on a data carrier and those merely transmitted via the internet or other communication systems.”

In other words, from a data-processing perspective, there is no technically relevant distinction between data stored on a carrier and data transmitted over a network.

Accordingly, an encoded bitstream may qualify for product protection even where it exists only as a sequence of signals and is not embodied in a physical medium.

The Court then went one step further:

“the encoded video signal constitutes a product directly obtained by the encoding method according to patent claim 1”

Thus, in the Court’s view, the encoded video signal is both a “product” within the meaning of Article 25(a) UPCA and a product directly obtained by a patented process under Article 25(c) UPCA.

2. Is the Encoding Process Part of the HEVC Standard?

Disney also raised SEP-related defences. Interestingly, the Court did not begin its analysis with FRAND issues. Instead, it first examined whether the asserted technology formed part of what the HEVC standard actually requires.

The Court stated:

“Nevertheless, the encoding process itself, in particular how to implement the technical requirements for providing an encoded signal that can be decoded in accordance with HEVC specifications, are not determined by the HEVC standard.”

At this point, it is worth looking at the HEVC specification. The specification defines an “encoding process” as:

“A process not specified in this Specification that produces a bitstream conforming to this Specification.”

This definition is revealing.

Structurally, the specification focuses on the bitstream and on how a compliant decoder processes that bitstream, rather than on the particular algorithms used within the encoder.

From a technical perspective, this design is not difficult to understand. The primary objective of a video coding standard is interoperability. As long as a conforming bitstream can be correctly decoded by a conforming decoder, devices and systems from different vendors can interoperate.

By contrast, the internal operation of the encoder is typically not essential to achieving that interoperability. Different encoders may employ different partition-selection strategies, mode-decision algorithms, or rate-distortion optimisation techniques, while still producing a bitstream that conforms to the standard.

The patent in suit can be viewed in this context. According to the patent specification, the invention addresses the limited flexibility associated with a fixed chroma partition type and seeks to improve chroma coding by supporting multiple chroma partition types.

This architecture — where the standard focuses on the bitstream and the decoder while leaving room for implementation choices within the encoder — also preserves space for innovation in encoder design.