Is currentTime a Queue?

When engineers see the word queue, they would normally think of an ordered collection of items waiting to be processed or played.

currentTime seems to be something quite different: a pointer specifying a playback position within media content.

This makes one passage in the Düsseldorf Local Division’s decision of 2 September 2026 in InterDigital v Disney (UPC_CFI_297/2025 and UPC_CFI_651/2025) particularly interesting:

“a mere time pointer ‘currentTime’ specifying a playback position of media content does amount to a queue of media content”

How can a currentTime pointer amount to a queue?

The answer becomes clearer when this passage is read together with the Court’s construction of the claim.

1.From an engineering perspective: queue vs. pointer

The patent at issue, EP 2 080 349 B1, concerns the sharing of media content between electronic equipment. Claim 1 requires session data to be automatically transferred from a first electronic equipment to a second electronic equipment. The session data includes:

“a queue of media content executing or executable on the first electronic equipment”

The claim then further specifies:

“said queue defines a user created arrangement of the media content”

From an engineering perspective, a queue and a playback-position pointer are readily understood as different things.

If a movie has reached 15:30, for example, currentTime identifies a position within that movie. The patent itself uses similar language. Paragraph [0029] states that the session data may include an “index or pointer that identifies a current location within the media content.”

Disney’s argument therefore followed a straightforward technical distinction. Even if the media content remaining after 15:30 could be regarded as a queue, currentTime would merely be a pointer indicating that position. In Disney’s view, a pointer that may indicate or determine a queue is not itself the queue required by the claim.

From an engineering perspective, the distinction is easy to follow.

2. What does queue mean in this patent?

The Court, however, did not construe queue in isolation.

The following feature was important:

“said queue defines a user created arrangement of the media content”

The Court regarded this language as a definition of the claimed queue. On that construction, a queue may therefore be any arrangement of media content created by a user.

It also rejected the proposition that a queue necessarily requires an ordered plurality of distinct items of media content. The description expressly states in paragraph [0006] that media content may include a playlist, but may also be “a single file”.

The Court similarly gave “arrangement of media content” a broad meaning: “any user-selected presentation of media content that relates to or contributes to a user experience when the media content is played.”

Seen in that light, the question changes.

It is no longer simply:

Is currentTime a queue in the computer-science sense?

The relevant question becomes:

Can currentTime satisfy the queue feature as that term is construed in this patent?

3. Why can currentTime amount to a queue?

In the challenged Disney+ cast implementation, information transmitted to the receiver included a media identifier and a pointer specifying the playback position, currentTime. According to InterDigital, the cast receiver used currentTime to determine the corresponding segment.

InterDigital argued that the pointer therefore determined which segments were being executed or remained to be executed and thereby implemented the claimed queue.

Disney took the opposite view. Even if the remaining segments could be considered a queue, currentTime itself was merely a time pointer. A pointer indicating a queue, Disney argued, should not be equated with the queue itself.

The Court accepted InterDigital’s position. At paragraph 330, it stated:

“a mere time pointer ‘currentTime’ specifying a playback position of media content does amount to a queue of media content”

The following paragraph explains:

”‘currentTime’ parameter defines a queue of media content still to be executed“

Read together with the Court’s earlier construction of queue, the reasoning becomes easier to understand.

The claimed queue was not limited to a list of separate media files or to a particular data structure. currentTime specifies the playback position and thereby defines the media content still to be executed. The Court further considered the playback position, together with the selected language and subtitles, to constitute a user-created arrangement of the media content.

4. The same construction also has to face the prior art

The other side of this construction becomes apparent when validity is considered.

The Court did not apply its understanding of queue only when assessing Disney+. Under the same claim construction, D1 could disclose the relevant queue feature through, among other things, a play action containing a unique content identifier and a reset flag. In D7, the information concerning the content selection currently being played on the peer device could likewise satisfy the queue feature.

As a result, claim 1 as granted was revoked for lack of novelty. Claim 1 according to the further-limited auxiliary request K5, however, was upheld, and the Court found that Disney+ indirectly infringed that claim.

An engineer encountering the statement that currentTime amounts to a queue may still instinctively think: these are two different things.

But how a technical object is characterised at the implementation level does not by itself determine whether it satisfies a particular claim feature. The relevant question is how queue is to be understood in the context of the claim, read in light of the description. Once that construction is established, the same yardstick has to be applied to the challenged embodiment and to the prior art.

A broader construction may bring currentTime within the claim. The same breadth may also bring more prior art within its scope.

That is perhaps what makes this case particularly interesting: engineering intuition is only the starting point. Once a claim is construed, its scope may look quite different from what one might expect at first sight.