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DOJ Anti-trust Investigation of MPEG-LA

Posted by Unknown on from the pay-the-fees-or-else dept.

thomst writes "The Wall Street Journal's Thomas Catan reports that the Department of Justice has launched an anti-trust investigation of MPEG-LA's purported efforts to prevent Google's VP8 codec from widespread adoption. According to the article, the California Stare Attorney General's office is also investigating MPEG-LA for possible restraint of trade practices."

4 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Settlers of Catan by hoggoth · · Score: 5, Funny

    When the parties come to a quiet settlement out of the public eye, I can't wait for Thomas Catan's headline: "Settlers of Catan"

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  2. Software Patent Absurdity by Mystiq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now can someone in government put two and two together and see the absurd situation software patents has caused? VP8 is supposed to be patent-free but everyone on the H264 side is calling it patent-encumbered anyway. The mere existence of patent trolls should be reason enough to get rid of the idea. You should be able to patent implementations, not ideas.

    The point of software patents was to protect innovation. This should be a clear example that it is not, as VP8's adoption is supposedly slow because of the risk of violating other patents whose owners won't come out of the woodwork until VP8 has enough market share to make a lawsuit nicely profitable. The whole thing is patently ridiculous.

    The sheer amount of patent lawsuits and now that even Google and Apple are teaming up against a troll is very telling. Software patents are not serving their intended purpose and it is obvious because no one wants to adopt VP8 because of the unknown threat. This is the stifling of innovation and is not protecting the patents of the 10 companies that may own patents to VP8 because no one wants to use them so they just become dead weight. What good is an idea if it can't be used?

    Software is a fickle thing. Your idea may have also been invented by someone and you just didn't patent it. This is the problem with software patents. The patents themselves can be very vague and cover a whole host of ideas. If the patent office has to pass more patents just to get rid of a backlog, perhaps it isn't the fault of the filers but the fault of the law.

    1. Re:Software Patent Absurdity by minorDistraction · · Score: 5, Insightful

      VP8 is not patent-free. Google has the patents, but it won't be charging money for it. If H264 wasn't covered by a bunch of expensive patents, VP8 would not be needed. People could put effort in improving H264 instead.

  3. Re:So, let me get this straight... by Plombo · · Score: 5, Informative

    The MPEG-LA is not actually affiliated with MPEG or ISO.