Tag: Patent pool
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MPEG Requests Comments, Further Evidence on Royalty-Free Standard
MPEG has issued a request for comments and a call for further evidence on a royalty-free video codec standard under consideration. The request is contained in the publicly available meeting resolutions of the October 2010 94th Meeting in Guangzhou, China. The request follows responses received at the October Guanghzou meeting to the previous August call…
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Google’s VP8 Patent Problem (It’s Even Bigger Than You Think)
Last week I encouraged Google to rethink their VP8 open sourcing patent strategy and “do the right open standards thing — join and contribute to responsible standards groups that are working to solve the royalty-free open standards need.” The blog was picked up in Simon Phipps’ ComputerWorld blog, ZDNet, The Register, LWN and elsewhere. At…
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How Google’s Open Sourcing of VP8 Harms the Open Web
Much of the initial commentary on Google’s open sourcing of the VP8 codec it acquired in purchasing On2 has breathlessly, and uncritically, centered on the purported game-changing impact of the move. But unfortunately, these commentaries miss an essential point that Google has studiously avoided mentioning the need to standardize royalty free codecs (not just release…
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MPEG Issues Resolution on Type-1 (Royalty-Free) Standardization
MPEG — Working Group 11 of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 — has issued a resolution seeking active participation in developing a Type-1 (royalty-free) video coding standard. “Given that there is a desire for using royalty free video coding technologies for some applications such as video distribution over the Internet, MPEG wishes to enquire of National…
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A Royalty-Free MPEG: It’s Time for ISO and ITU to Deliver
In late 2001, to much industry enthusiasm, H.264 and MPEG-4 AVC were launched as the world’s unifying codec family in a joint project between ITU and ISO/MPEG with the undertaking that the “JVT [Joint Video Team] will define a “baseline” profile. That profile should be royalty-free for all implementations.” The failure to deliver on this…
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Don’t Quit – Evolve! ATSC Forum to Close Doors
Last week, Business News Americas broke the story that the ATSC Forum — the industry group that lobbies for the international adoption of the US ATSC digital TV standard of the Advanced Television Systems Committee — plans to close its doors at the end of September. Although the ATSC Forum’s closure has gotten little attention…
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Broadcasters Challenge Broadband TV Patent Submarine Threat
I’ve pointed out how the EBU, the world’s largest organization of national broadcasters, is beating the drum to avoid patent lock-ins in new standards for hybrid broadcast-broadband TV services. EBU’s own write-up of last week’s EBU/ETSI workshop is even more direct: “Broadcasters are haunted by the ghosts of the submarine patents which emerged with MHP…
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Patent Dumping For Democracy: Reconsidering America’s DTV Diplomacy
“More Democratic” … “It is a matter of social justice” So US ambassadors have lobbied South American governments since 2007 that “[t]he issue is whether the government will choose the [ATSC] digital television standard that is already providing the highest quality, lowest cost, and most democratic opportunities …” In recent months Peru, Argentina, and now…
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6 Things You Should Know About Open Video & Open Standards
It is very exciting to see the “Open Video” movement taking off and finding voice with the upcoming Open Video Conference. This well-earned “open breakthrough” has been a long time coming. After all, open standards, and particularly royalty-free standards, are the very foundation of the Open Internet as we know it, and Internet leaders are…
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MPEG at 20
Updating market information in this post on the release of the royalty-free OMS Video draft specification, here are data points about MPEG released at the MPEG 20th Year Anniversary Commemoration in Tokyo in November 2008. Importantly, Lawrence A. Horn, CEO of the license administration company, affirmed the: “Freedom of Licensors and Licensees to develop competing…