Mewburn Ellis hires Deborah Bould to lead tech patent litigation

The recruitment signals a strategic shift for European patent firms toward the emerging 'streaming wars' of video codec intellectual property. As streaming services transition to newer standards like VVC and HEVC, the risk of cross-border SEP litigation increases significantly for both platform operators and device manufacturers. Mewburn Ellis is positioning itself to handle the expected surge in FRAND disputes under the Unified Patent Court's jurisdiction, which allows for centralized enforcement across most of Europe. Stakeholders should monitor whether this expansion correlates with more aggressive patent assertions from non-practicing entities (NPEs) in the codec space.

The expansion of Mewburn Ellis's litigation team occurs as the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and UK courts set critical precedents for standard-essential patents. Per Juve Patent, October 2024, the UK Court of Appeal issued a landmark ruling in Panasonic v. Xiaomi, granting the first-ever 'interim' FRAND license and labeling the patent holder an 'unwilling licensor' for pursuing parallel injunctions in the UPC. This highlighted a growing jurisdictional friction between London and the newly operational UPC in Mannheim, where judges have shown a higher willingness to grant permanent injunctions, as seen in the Philips v. Belkin decision reported by IPWatchdog in October 2025.

Simultaneously, the technical focus of patent disputes is moving beyond cellular standards toward video compression and media delivery technology. According to reporting from Fish & Richardson in February 2026, litigation involving video codec SEPs increased by 103% between 2020 and 2025, even as traditional cellular SEP actions declined. This surge is largely driven by fragmented licensing infrastructures for newer standards like HEVC (H.265) and VVC (H.266), which often involve multiple competing patent pools rather than the single-pool model used for H.264.

Regulatory scrutiny is also intensifying as standard-setting organizations grapple with cross-jurisdictional enforcement strategies. Per Cornerstone Research, March 2026, video codec disputes increasingly resemble the earlier 'smartphone wars,' with litigation extending to streaming platforms and cloud service providers. The hiring of specialists like Bould reflects a broader trend among European intellectual property firms to build multi-jurisdictional defense and enforcement squads capable of navigating these increasingly complex and high-stakes royalty negotiations for digital media companies.