MPEG LA

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MPEG Licensing Administration, LLC
Company type Private
Industry Licensing administration
Founded1996;28 years ago (1996)
DefunctMay 2, 2023 (2023-05-02)
Headquarters
Denver, Colorado
,
US
Key people
Larry Horn
Products Patent licenses
Website www.mpegla.com

MPEG LA was an American company based in Denver, Colorado that licensed patent pools covering essential patents required for use of the MPEG-2, MPEG-4, IEEE 1394, VC-1, ATSC, MVC, MPEG-2 Systems, AVC/H.264 and HEVC standards. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Via Licensing Corp acquired MPEG LA in April 2023 and formed a new patent pool administration company called Via Licensing Alliance. [4]

History

MPEG LA started operations in July 1997 immediately after receiving a Department of Justice Business Review Letter. [5] During formation of the MPEG-2 standard, a working group of companies that participated in the formation of the MPEG-2 standard recognized that the biggest challenge to adoption was efficient access to essential patents owned by many patent owners. That ultimately led to a group of various MPEG-2 patent owners to form MPEG LA, which in turn created the first modern-day patent pool as a solution. The majority of patents underlying MPEG-2 technology were owned by three companies: Sony (311 patents), Thomson (198 patents) and Mitsubishi Electric (119 patents). [6] [7]

In June 2012, MPEG LA announced a call for patents essential to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. [8]

In September 2012, MPEG LA launched Librassay, which makes diagnostic patent rights from some of the world's leading research institutions available to everyone through a single license. Organizations which have included patents in Librassay include Johns Hopkins University; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; National Institutes of Health (NIH); Partners HealthCare; The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University; The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania; The University of California, San Francisco; and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). [9] [10]

On September 29, 2014, the MPEG LA announced their HEVC license which covers the patents from 23 companies. [11] The license is US$0.20 per HEVC product after the first 100,000 units each year with an annual cap. [12] The license has been expanded to include the profiles in version 2 of the HEVC standard. [13]

On March 5, 2015, the MPEG LA announced their DisplayPort license which is US$0.20 per DisplayPort product. [14]

In April 2023, in what is thought to be the first time that two pool administrators have merged into one, Via Licensing Corp acquired MPEG LA and formed a new patent pool administrator called Via Licensing Alliance. Via President Heath Hoglund will serve as president of the new company. MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn will serve as a Via LA advisor. [15]

Criticism

MPEG LA has claimed that video codecs such as Theora [16] [17] [18] and VP8 [19] [20] [21] infringe on patents owned by its licensors, without disclosing the affected patent or patents. [22] They then called out for “any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VP8 video codec”. [23] In April 2013, Google and MPEG LA announced an agreement covering the VP8 video format. [24]

In May 2010, Nero AG filed an antitrust suit against MPEG LA, claiming it "unlawfully extended its patent pools by adding non-essential patents to the MPEG-2 patent pool" and has been inconsistent in charging royalty fees. [25] The United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the suit with prejudice on November 29, 2010. [26]

David Balto, who is a former policy director at the Federal Trade Commission, has used the MPEG-2 patent pool as an example of why patent pools need more scrutiny so that they do not suppress innovation. [27] [28]

The MPEG-2 patent pool began with 100 patents in 1997 and since then additional patents were added. [29] [30] The MPEG-2 license agreement states that if possible the license fee will not increase when new patents are added. [31] The MPEG-2 license agreement stated that MPEG-2 royalties must be paid when there is one or more active patents in either the country of manufacture or the country of sale. [32] The original MPEG-2 license rate was US$4 for a decoding license, US$4 for an encoding license and US$6.00 for encode-decode consumer product. [33]

A criticism of the MPEG-2 patent pool is that even though the number of patents decreased from 1,048 to 416 by June 2013 the license fee did not decrease with the expiration rate of MPEG-2 patents. [34] [35] [36] For products from January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2009 royalties were US$2.50 for a decoding license, US$2.50 for an encoding license and US$2.50 for encode-decode consumer product license. [37] Since January 1, 2010, MPEG-2 patent pool royalties were US$2.00 for a decoding license, US$2.00 for an encoding license and US$2.00 for encode-decode consumer product. [37]

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC licensors

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

The following organizations hold one or more patents in MPEG LA's H.264/AVC patent pool.

H.264/AVC patent holders (as of December 2022) [38]
Organization [39] Active patentsExpired patentsTotal patents [38]
Panasonic Corporation 1,0544161,470
Godo Kaisha IP Bridge1,0332671,300
LG Electronics 8711301001
Dolby Laboratories 10144141428
Toshiba 59336395
Microsoft 95145240
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (including NTT Docomo)2344238
Sony 7777154
Fraunhofer Society 20816224
Google 5134139
GE Video Compression1360136
Fujitsu 9214106
Mitsubishi Electric 4456100
Tagivan II LLC82082
Samsung Electronics 174663
Maxell 54256
Philips 64147
Vidyo 41243
Ericsson 13334
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea102535
Siemens 123951
The Trustees of Columbia University in New York City 02626
Polycom 22022
Robert Bosch GmbH 02222
Apple 729
JVC Kenwood 358
Orange S.A. 13720
Sharp Corporation 505
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) 145
Cisco Systems 314
ZTE Corporation 022
Cisco Technology101
Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. 011
Hewlett-Packard Company 011
Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co.516
B1 Institute of Image Technology606
Newracom, Inc.011
NEC 516
Vestel Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S.101
Total (All Manufacturers)519722917488

HEVC licensors

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

The following organizations hold one or more patents in the HEVC patent pool.

HEVC patent holders (as of July 2019) [40]
Organization [41] Active patentsExpired patentsTotal patents [40]
Samsung Electronics 3,55043,554
M&K Holdings [42] 9070907
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (including NTT Docomo)8782880
JVC Kenwood Corporation6280628
Infobridge Pte. Ltd. [43] 5720572
SK Telecom (including SK Planet)3800380
KT Corp 2890289
NEC Corporation2190219
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea2080208
Canon Inc. 1800180
Tagivan II1620162
Fujitsu 1441145
Kyung Hee University 1030103
Apple 69069
Intellectual Discovery Co.67067
Maxell 60060
IBEX PT Holdings58058
Vidyo 41041
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) 38038
HUMAX Holdings 32032
Kwangwoon University 24024
Siemens 13821
Korean Broadcasting System 20020
Orange S.A. 20020
BBC 19019
The Trustees of Columbia University in New York City 01616
Sejong University 13013
Korea Aerospace University 12012
Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology 10010
Sungkyunkwan University 808
Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) 707
Sky Media Tech, Inc.303
Digital Insights Inc.202
Alpha Digitech101
MIT 101
Newracom (Newratek)011
Total (All Manufacturers)8738328770

VC-1 licensors

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

The following organizations hold one or more patents in the VC-1 patent pool (as of October 8,2023). [44] [45]

OrganizationActive patentsExpired patentsTotal patents [45]
Microsoft 262204466
Panasonic 5117122
LG Electronics 118596
Samsung Electronics 49296
Dolby Laboratories 995104
Philips 07777
Hitachi 06060
Mitsubishi Electric 05252
Sony 02828
JVC Kenwood 02525
Toshiba 02121
Fujitsu 02020
Telenor 01919
Siemens 21618
AT&T Intellectual Property 01616
Sun Patent Trust01212
Sharp Corporation 088
Orange S.A. 077
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone 044
Pantech 044
ZTE 011
Total (All Manufacturers)2939631256

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MPEG-2</span> Video encoding standard

MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission bandwidth. While MPEG-2 is not as efficient as newer standards such as H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC, backwards compatibility with existing hardware and software means it is still widely used, for example in over-the-air digital television broadcasting and in the DVD-Video standard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Video codec</span> Digital video processing

A video codec is software or hardware that compresses and decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, codec is a portmanteau of encoder and decoder, while a device that only compresses is typically called an encoder, and one that only decompresses is a decoder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advanced Video Coding</span> Most widely used standard for video compression

Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distribution of video content, used by 91% of video industry developers as of September 2019. It supports a maximum resolution of 8K UHD.

SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile, it was officially approved as a SMPTE standard on April 3, 2006. It was primarily marketed as a lower-complexity competitor to the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC standard. After its development, several companies other than Microsoft asserted that they held patents that applied to the technology, including Panasonic, LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics.

x264 is a free and open-source software library and a command-line utility developed by VideoLAN for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression format developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It uses block-wise motion compensation and a discrete cosine transform (DCT), similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 Part 2 and H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2.

libavcodec is a free and open-source library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data.

Video Acceleration API (VA-API) is an open source application programming interface that allows applications such as VLC media player or GStreamer to use hardware video acceleration capabilities, usually provided by the graphics processing unit (GPU). It is implemented by the free and open-source library libva, combined with a hardware-specific driver, usually provided together with the GPU driver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VP8</span> Open and royalty-free video coding format released by Google in 2010

VP8 is an open and royalty-free video compression format released by On2 Technologies in 2008.

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding. In comparison to AVC, HEVC offers from 25% to 50% better data compression at the same level of video quality, or substantially improved video quality at the same bit rate. It supports resolutions up to 8192×4320, including 8K UHD, and unlike the primarily 8-bit AVC, HEVC's higher fidelity Main 10 profile has been incorporated into nearly all supporting hardware.

HTML video is a subject of the HTML specification as the standard way of playing video via the web. Introduced in HTML5, it is designed to partially replace the object element and the previous de facto standard of using the proprietary Adobe Flash plugin, though early adoption was hampered by lack of agreement as to which video coding formats and audio coding formats should be supported in web browsers. As of 2020, HTML video is the only widely supported video playback technology in modern browsers, with the Flash plugin being phased out.

WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML video and the HTML audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponsored by Google, and the corresponding software is distributed under a BSD license.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chips&Media</span> Intellectual property provider

Chips&Media, Inc. is a provider of intellectual property for integrated circuits such as system on a chip technology for encoding and decoding video, and image processing. Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.

Intel Quick Sync Video is Intel's brand for its dedicated video encoding and decoding hardware core. Quick Sync was introduced with the Sandy Bridge CPU microarchitecture on 9 January 2011 and has been found on the die of Intel CPUs ever since.

A video coding format is a content representation format of digital video content, such as in a data file or bitstream. It typically uses a standardized video compression algorithm, most commonly based on discrete cosine transform (DCT) coding and motion compensation. A specific software, firmware, or hardware implementation capable of compression or decompression in a specific video coding format is called a video codec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VP9</span> Open and royalty-free video coding format released by Google in 2013

VP9 is an open and royalty-free video coding format developed by Google.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format initially designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It was developed as a successor to VP9 by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium founded in 2015 that includes semiconductor firms, video on demand providers, video content producers, software development companies and web browser vendors. The AV1 bitstream specification includes a reference video codec. In 2018, Facebook conducted testing that approximated real-world conditions, and the AV1 reference encoder achieved 34%, 46.2%, and 50.3% higher data compression than libvpx-vp9, x264 High profile, and x264 Main profile respectively.

Versatile Video Coding (VVC), also known as H.266, ISO/IEC 23090-3, and MPEG-I Part 3, is a video compression standard finalized on 6 July 2020, by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET) of the VCEG working group of ITU-T Study Group 16 and the MPEG working group of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29. It is the successor to High Efficiency Video Coding. It was developed with two primary goals – improved compression performance and support for a very broad range of applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LCEVC</span> Video coding standard

Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding (LCEVC) is a ISO/IEC video coding standard developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) under the project name MPEG-5 Part 2 LCEVC.

References

  1. ↑ "Revolutionizing Intellectual Property Rights Management" . Retrieved 2011-04-13.
  2. ↑ Loli, Eugen (2011-05-01), Why Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the MPEG-LA, OSNews
  3. ↑ Cleanse, Nike (2007-03-12), Chinese set-top box makers, MPEG LA face off over patent fees, EE Times
  4. ↑ Ozer, Jan (2023-05-08), Via LA’s Heath Hoglund Talks MPEG LA/Via Licensing Patent Pool Merger, StreamingMedia.com
  5. ↑ "MPEG LA Business Review Letter" . Retrieved 2013-05-13.
  6. ↑ "MPEG-2 Patent List" (PDF). MPEG LA. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  7. ↑ "MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License Program". MPEG LA. Archived from the original on 29 May 2019. Retrieved 29 May 2019.
  8. ↑ "MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)" (PDF) (Press release). Denver, CO: MPEG LA. 2012-06-26. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-05-14. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
  9. ↑ "MPEG LA's Librassay® Removes Patent Barriers to Diagnostics for Personalized Medicine" (PDF) (Press release). Denver, CO: MPEG LA. 2012-09-27. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
  10. ↑ "MPEG LA Continues to Expand Librassay® with Addition of WARF" (PDF) (Press release). Denver, CO: MPEG LA. 2013-02-21. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
  11. ↑ "MPEG LA Offers HEVC Patent Portfolio License". Yahoo Finance. 2014-09-29. Archived from the original on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-09-29.
  12. ↑ "HEVC Patent Portfolio License Briefing" (PDF). MPEG LA. 2014-09-29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-10-06. Retrieved 2014-09-29.
  13. ↑ "MPEG LA Expands HEVC License Coverage". Yahoo Finance. 2015-03-19. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2015-03-20.
  14. ↑ "MPEG LA Introduces License for DisplayPort". Business Wire. March 5, 2015. Retrieved March 5, 2015.
  15. ↑ Morris, Angela (2023-05-02), Via Licensing acquires MPEG LA in patent pool merger first, IAM
  16. ↑ Ozer, Jan (2010-03-04), Ogg, MPEG LA, and Submarine Patents, StreamingMedia.com
  17. ↑ Metz, Cade (2010-04-30), Steve Jobs: mystery patent pool to attack Ogg Theora, The Register
  18. ↑ Blankenhorn, Dana (2010-05-02), Behind the open codec FUD attack, ZDNet, archived from the original on May 5, 2010
  19. ↑ Metz, Cade (2010-05-20), Google backs open codec against patent trolls, The Register
  20. ↑ Metz, Cade (2010-05-21), Google open video codec may face patent clash, The Register
  21. ↑ Fulton, Scott M. (2010-05-21), Patent pool may be in the works for 'free' VP8 codec, Betanews
  22. ↑ Blankenhorn, Dana (2010-05-24), FUD pushing back hard against Google WebM, ZDNet, archived from the original on May 27, 2010
  23. ↑ MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec, Denver, CO: MPEG LA, 2011-02-10, archived from the original on 2011-02-11, retrieved 2010-02-12
  24. ↑ "Google and MPEG LA Announce Agreement Covering VP8 Video Format" (PDF) (Press release). Denver, CO: MPEG LA. 2013-03-07. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2013-05-13.
  25. ↑ Holwerda, Thom (2010-05-24), Nero Files Antitrust Case Against MPEG-LA, OSNews
  26. ↑ NERO AG v. MPEG LA, L.L.C. (PDF), United States District Court for the Central District of California, 2010-11-24, retrieved 2013-06-05
  27. ↑ David Balto (2013-05-09). "Patent Pools May Create Anticompetitive Effects, New Report Finds". Business Wire. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  28. ↑ David Balto. "Barriers to Competition on the Innovation Superhighway: How the Lack of Antitrust Scrutiny of Patent Pools Deters Competition" (PDF). The Law Offices of David A. Balto PLLC. Retrieved 2013-07-03.
  29. ↑ Larry Horn (2002-08-19). "Alternative approaches to IP management: One-stop technology platform licensing" (PDF). Journal of Commercial Biotechnology. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  30. ↑ "Attachment 1" (PDF). MPEG LA. 1997-06-08. Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  31. ↑ Josh Lerner; Jean Tirole (2008-04-01). "Public Policy toward Patent Pools" (PDF). National Bureau of Economic Research . Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  32. ↑ "MPEG-2 License Agreement". MPEG LA. Retrieved 2013-06-26.
  33. ↑ Franklin Douglas (2005-03-18). "MPEG licensing basics". EE Times . Retrieved 2013-06-23.
  34. ↑ "Patent Pools May Create Anticompetitive Effects, New Report Finds". Business Wire. 2013-05-09. Retrieved 2013-06-06.
  35. ↑ Bret Swanson (2013-04-30). "MPEG-LA Shows Need to Rebuild IP Foundations". Forbes . Retrieved 2013-05-19.
  36. ↑ Steve Forbes (2013-03-18). "America's patent system is all wrong for today's high-tech world". Fox News Channel . Retrieved 2013-06-05.
  37. 1 2 "MPEG-2 License Agreement". MPEG LA. 2013-05-13. Retrieved 2013-05-19.
  38. 1 2 "AVC/H.264 – Patent List" (PDF). MPEG LA. Retrieved 22 December 2022.
  39. ↑ "AVC/H.264 Licensors". MPEG-LA. Archived from the original on 2015-05-30. Retrieved 2013-05-19.
  40. 1 2 "HEVC: Patent List" (PDF). MPEG LA. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  41. ↑ "MPEG LA Offers HEVC Patent Portfolio License" (PDF). MPEG LA. Retrieved 2014-10-15.
  42. ↑ "M&K Holdings: Private Company Information". Bloomberg . Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  43. ↑ "INFOBRIDGE PTE. LTD". Singapore Business Directory. Retrieved 6 July 2019.
  44. ↑ "VC-1 Licensors". MPEG-LA. Archived from the original on 2012-02-06. Retrieved 2013-05-19.
  45. 1 2 "VC-1 Patent List" (PDF). MPEG LA. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
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