diff --git a/codec-http/src/main/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressor.java b/codec-http/src/main/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressor.java
index 134be08c00..11c6129333 100644
--- a/codec-http/src/main/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressor.java
+++ b/codec-http/src/main/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressor.java
@@ -101,8 +101,7 @@ public class HttpContentCompressor extends HttpContentEncoder {
     @Override
     protected Result beginEncode(HttpResponse headers, String acceptEncoding) throws Exception {
         String contentEncoding = headers.headers().get(HttpHeaderNames.CONTENT_ENCODING);
-        if (contentEncoding != null &&
-            !HttpHeaderValues.IDENTITY.contentEqualsIgnoreCase(contentEncoding)) {
+        if (HttpHeaderValues.IDENTITY.contentEqualsIgnoreCase(contentEncoding)) {
             return null;
         }
 
diff --git a/codec-http/src/test/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressorTest.java b/codec-http/src/test/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressorTest.java
index 2235cb64c4..4946328eba 100644
--- a/codec-http/src/test/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressorTest.java
+++ b/codec-http/src/test/java/io/netty/handler/codec/http/HttpContentCompressorTest.java
@@ -373,6 +373,28 @@ public class HttpContentCompressorTest {
         }
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void testIdentity() throws Exception {
+        EmbeddedChannel ch = new EmbeddedChannel(new HttpContentCompressor());
+        assertTrue(ch.writeInbound(newRequest()));
+
+        FullHttpResponse res = new DefaultFullHttpResponse(
+                HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1, HttpResponseStatus.OK,
+                Unpooled.copiedBuffer("Hello, World", CharsetUtil.US_ASCII));
+        int len = res.content().readableBytes();
+        res.headers().set(HttpHeaderNames.CONTENT_LENGTH, len);
+        res.headers().set(HttpHeaderNames.CONTENT_ENCODING, HttpHeaderValues.IDENTITY);
+        assertTrue(ch.writeOutbound(res));
+
+        FullHttpResponse response = (FullHttpResponse) ch.readOutbound();
+        assertEquals(String.valueOf(len), response.headers().get(HttpHeaderNames.CONTENT_LENGTH));
+        assertEquals(HttpHeaderValues.IDENTITY.toString(), response.headers().get(HttpHeaderNames.CONTENT_ENCODING));
+        assertEquals("Hello, World", response.content().toString(CharsetUtil.US_ASCII));
+        response.release();
+
+        assertTrue(ch.finishAndReleaseAll());
+    }
+
     private static FullHttpRequest newRequest() {
         FullHttpRequest req = new DefaultFullHttpRequest(HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1, HttpMethod.GET, "/");
         req.headers().set(HttpHeaderNames.ACCEPT_ENCODING, "gzip");