Dolby sues Snapchat over video codecs, raising questions about AV1's open and royalty-free status

Dolby sued Snap on March 23, 2026, alleging Snapchat's video encoding/decoding processes infringe four Dolby patents related to color plane prediction, block merging, sample sequence coding, and entropy coding mechanisms. The lawsuit challenges AV1 codec's "royalty-free" status, claiming it incorporates Dolby's patented technology from HEVC. Access Advance has sought licensing since August 2025. Dolby seeks damages, injunction against AV1 encoding/decoding, and confirmation of no licensing obligations to competitors.