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Context: MediaTek used to be one of the most vocal proponents of exhaustive chipset-level licenses to standard-essential patents (SEPs), but took the opposite position in a dispute with Huawei. MediaTek’s hold-out strategy involved UK FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) litigation (April 15, 2025 ip fray article). Cases were pending in various jurisdictions, but Brazil was ahead of the crowd with a couple of preliminary injunctions (PIs) that issued in the spring, one over a 4G SEP and one over an Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) SEP.

What’s new: Yesterday (October 8, 2025), a Brazilian court document confirming a settlement between the parties and linking it to customs enforcement against imports of MediaTek chips became publicly accessible. We downloaded it this morning. Furthermore, Access Advance now lists Huawei among its Versatile Video Coding (VVC, H.266) licensees. MediaTek subsidiary HFI Innovation has been a VVC Advance licensor for some time, and has recently sued Huawei in the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Mannheim Local Division (LD) as one prong of the wider dispute.

Direct impact: In the combination of the Brazilian court order and the near-simultaneous appearance of Huawei on the list of VVC Advance licensees, there was no reasonable doubt that the settlement is comprehensive. We nevertheless asked Huawei and received the following statement: “The parties have agreed to settle all the patent disputes between them. The terms of the settlement are confidential.”

Wider ramifications:

• Huawei’s licensing program continues to expand. Litigation gets more attention but is an exception. Earlier this year, it settled litigation with Netgear over WiFi SEPs (January 4, 2025 ip fray article). By virtue of being one of the world’s largest implementers of SEPs itself (which exposed it to MediaTek’s offensive countersuits), Huawei cannot be strategically interested in patentee overcompensation.
• Huawei had not previously taken the VVC Advance license, but is both a licensor and a licensee of HEVC Advance (High Efficiency Video Coding, H.265), and presently taking part in an HEVC Advance enforcement campaign against Transsion (August 4, 2025 ip fray article). Given that Huawei was on good terms with Access Advance, any leverage that MediaTek could have gained from the enforcement efforts of its HFI Innovation subsidiary was going to be limited.
• The efficiency of patent enforcement in Brazil, which also led Chinese automaker BYD to settle its disputes with certain Avanci licensors (September 25, 2025 ip fray article), is nothing short of stunning. In Huawei v. MediaTek, an import ban was achieved in a fraction of the time it would have taken to obtain a limited exclusion order (LEO) from the United States International Trade Commission (USITC or ITC). What is an even more remarkable difference, no U.S. import ban has ever been actually enforced over SEPs. Many cases may have settled in anticipation of that, but the only SEP-based LEO that the ITC ever ordered (against Apple) was vetoed by the White House.

Rulings by the Rio de Janeiro State Judiciary and other Brazilian courts are routinely reported in the Diário de Justiça Eletrônico Nacional (National Electronic Law Gazette). The edition of April 11, 2025 revealed the decision in case no. 0838699-48.2025.8.19.0001 over an EVS patent (BR 112015013088-7). Toward the end, the following sentence indicated that the court not only enjoined MediaTek but also asked Brazilian customs to enforce the PI against unlawful imports:

Expeça-se ofício ao Ilmo. Sr. Secretário Especial da Receita Federal do Brasil, com cópia da presente decisão, informando sobre a concessão da liminar como exemplificado no Anexo I (exemplo de chipsets infratores da MediaTek), para adoção das medidas que entender cabíveis diante da proibição de comercialização nacional do produto.

This is a Google translation:

Send a letter to the Honorable Special Secretary of the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service, with a copy of this decision, informing him of the granting of the injunction as exemplified in Annex I (example of infringing MediaTek chipsets), for the adoption of any measures deemed appropriate in light of the ban on the national marketing of the product.

Em ID 231926048 foram juntadas informações pelo Sr. Delegado da Alfândega da RFB do Porto de Manaus, Dr Marcelo Augusto Calbo Garcia, com o conteúdo das cargas retidas.

Google translation:

In ID 231926048, information was attached by the Federal Revenue Delegate of the RFB of the Port of Manaus, Dr. Marcelo Augusto Calbo Garcia, with the contents of the detained cargo.

The sequence of events appears crystal clear: MediaTek shipments were held at the Port of Manaus (a four-hour flight away from Rio, where the court order came down), and the parties then reached an agreement, which enabled the release of the shipments.

Brazil, the world’s seventh most populous nation, is the world’s number five smartphone market and also the number five smartphone manufacturing site, making products for the local market and surrounding countries. Samsung and Lenovo’s Motorola Mobility subsidiary are the largest producers, but even Apple has some local operations.

MediaTek is the leading provider of chipsets to Brazilian smartphone manufacturing sites, followed by Qualcomm. It formally sells in the Taiwanese market, but companies where Samsung and Motorola purchase those products and export them to countries like Brazil (intracompany transactions). In rem (“against the thing” as opposed to a particular party or group of parties) injunctions such as customs seizures are not evaded through a first sale in Taiwan.

This examples shows that Brazilian customs enforcement of patents beats the ITC’s speed by a wide margin. The ITC aims for a decision within 15 months of the filing of the complaint, but usually needs 17 or 18 months, followed by a 60-day Presidential review period. Therefore, enforcement practically takes about 20 months in total, not even counting various outliers where the top-level decision-making body of the ITC remands an investigation to the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) or where the ALJ has delays. In the Brazilian Huawei v. MediaTek case it took only 5 to 6 months from the filing of the PI motion until shipments were held.

In the smartphone industry as well as in certain other fields such as connected vehicles, many cellular SEP licenses are granted at the end-product level. But patentees have the choice and can also enforce their rights against infringing suppliers, which is sometimes the pragmatic solution. If one asked MediaTek a few years ago, such as during the 2019 Federal Trade Commission v. Qualcomm trial and during the subsequent appeal, it’s the best solution. Now Media does have that kind of license from Huawei and can try to persuade other SEP holders to follow suit.

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Court and counsel

Judge Priscila Fernandes Miranda Botelho da Ponte approved the settlement.

Brazilian counsel for Huawei: Licks Attorneys’ Otto Licks, Felipe Barros Oquendo, Lucas Bernardo Antoniazzi, Pedro de Abreu Monteiro Campos, Aryeza Ares Monteiro and Gisela de Lamara de Paiva Coelho; and Basilio Advogados’ João Augusto Basilio.

Brazilian counsel for MediaTek: Montaury Pimenta Machado & Vieira de Mello’s Luiz Edgard Montaury Pimenta, Ana Paula Affonso Brito Woldaynsky; and FCDG’s Patricia Klien Vega.

UPC counsel for Huawei (counsel of record differs from case to case): Clifford Chance’s Dr. Tobias Hessel and Bird & Bird’s Dr. Matthias Meyer in the offensive cases, and Bird & Bird’s Christian Harmsen in the defensive cases against HFI Innovation.

UPC counsel for MediaTek: Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner’s Dr. Antje Brambrink.

UPC counsel for MediaTek subsidiary HFI Innovation: EIP’s Isabelle Schaller and Dr. Sebastian Fuchs.

UK counsel for MediaTek in its FRAND case: Kirkland & Ellis.

UK counsel for Huawei: Bird & Bird.