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MPEG-LA Considering Patent Pool For VP8/WebM
An anonymous reader writes "Well, that didn't take long. Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG-LA, the consortium that controls the AVC/H.264 video standard, says the group is looking at creating a patent pool license for VP8 and WebM, Google's new open source, royalty-free HTML5 video format... So much for a Web video standard unencumbered by patent issues." We talked about VP8/WebM a couple of days ago when Google open sourced it. Reader Stoobalou points out another late-night email from Steve Jobs, who was asked to comment on VP8 vs. H.264. Jobs laconically sent a pointer to the technical analysis we linked before, where the poster says "VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free."
"The thing is, MPEG-LA ensures that H.264 and you are free from any patent violations".
That's technically not true. However, any third party that tried to litigate would have it made worth their while to join the pool. If it's really money you're after, it's much safer and easier to join the pool.
AV is really the area worst affected by software patents. The media talks a lot about "silly patents", but they're *not* the real problem. MPEG-LA holds over 1000 patents - no amount of raised standards will solve this problem. Patents on playing video have to be declared null and void.
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With or without the authority to sublicense these patents?
They are explicitly not providing patent protection for anyone else.
How about adding something like this to the TOS of an unrelated, widely used Google service: "By entering a query into Google Search, you agree not to sue users of WebM multimedia technology for infringement of any patent that you believe is essential to WebM multimedia technology."
Because that wouldn't stand up in any court of law?
There is already something like that in the common law tradition. It's called laches.
You're thick, because that's precisely what they did. Theora is essentially VP3, the predecessor of VP8, which is what Google released 2 days ago. Oh that and Vorbis is the audio codec. Notice how they use Vorbis as the audio codec in WebM. And yes, WebM is a subset of Matroska (MKV) before you ask about that.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
It is a BSD style license, and also licenses you to use the patents on it royalty free, however it is revoked in the event you file a patent claim against VP8. Well this implies two things:
1) If you go after VP8, you can't use it in any form in any of your stuff. So say Sony sues over an H.264 patent they hold that they say VP8 infringes on. Ok now all their hardware can't legally play VP8 anymore, their license has been revoked. However that hardware may have the ability to do so because it is part of the TI chip they use (Google is working with chip makers). So now they have to recall existing hardware and redesign using a new chip, or face counter-litigation. Oh, and of course even if they do it means they can't play VP8 content anymore, which means their devices aren't as attractive.
2) Google has patents on VP8, that they got when they bought On2. If any technology the company filing suit makes use of infringes on those, well then they can count-sue. Perhaps one of the VP8 patents applies to H.264 as well. So you could risk getting nailed with a similar suit and finding yourself unable to sell hardware using H.264. Remember: MPEG-LA only says that their members can't sue you if you have a license. If anyone else who's not a member has a patent, well you are on your own.
AFAIK VP8 was designed with avoiding infringing patents in the first place. The easiest way to do that is to exactly like h264, while changing enough so as to be different from at least one claim of each patent. IIRC if you can show you're not doing something exactly like the claim, you're not infringing. That doesn't work when the patent is too vague, but then the patent owner faces the risk of having his patent rejected and/or having prior art.