[Commons-law] announcement on MPEG licensing

[Shamnad Basheer]

standard setting and conflicting proprietary right
issues are becoming increasingly important talk
points. in fact, the recent past has seen several
companies participating in standard setting without
disclosing patents that in some way cover the
standard-an unethical practice-and one which helps
these companies rake in huge royalties once the
standard is accepted. of course, some of these
unethical practices have been succesfully challenged
in courts. 

regards-shamnad

--- Rana Dasgupta <rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com> wrote: >
just saw this press release.  am not sure if it's
> relevant...
> 
> R
> 
> MPEG LA Announces Plan for Licensing of Essential
> H.264 JVT/MPEG-4 AVC Patents
> Call for Submission of Patents for Evaluation by
> Independent Patent Experts is First Step 
> 
> Denver, United States, Thursday, September 12, 2002
> --
> (business2media) -- MPEG LA, LLC makes the following
> worldwide announcement of a plan aimed at providing
> fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory worldwide access
> under a single license to patents that are essential
> for implementing the digital video compression
> standard to be known as ITU-T H.264 and ISO/IEC
> 14496-10 ("Proposed JVT/AVC Standard"). The first
> step
> in the plan calls for those with patents that they
> believe are essential to the Proposed JVT/AVC
> Standard
> (as more specifically described below) to submit
> them
> for an evaluation of essentiality by independent
> patent experts. 
> 
> Following is a summary of the plan:
> 
> 1. Objective
> 
> To establish a portfolio of essential worldwide
> patents that are necessary for implementation of the
> Proposed JVT/AVC standard in order to provide all
> JVT/AVC users with fair, reasonable,
> nondiscriminatory
> access to this technology under one license.
> 
> 2. Licensed patents
> 
> Essential patents will consist of those that are
> necessary for the Proposed JVT/AVC standard.
> Currently, the Proposed JVT/AVC standard is
> documented
> in the Joint Final Committee Draft (JFCD) ITU-T
> H.264
> and the Final Committee Draft (FCD) ISO/IEC 14496-10
> (MPEG-4 AVC) hereinafter "ITU-T FCD H.264" and
> "ISO/IEC FCD 14496-10". These documents are more
> formally known as: Joint Video Team (JVT) of ISO/IEC
> MPEG and ITU-T VCEG D157, "Joint Final Committee
> Draft
> (JFCD) of Joint Video Specification", Klagenfurt,
> July
> 2002, and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 N4920 "Final
> Committee Draft for Advanced Video Coding (ISO/IEC
> 14496-10)", Klagenfurt, July 2002. To be essential,
> an
> issued patent must have one or more independent
> claims
> that are necessarily infringed by use or
> implementation of the Proposed JVT/AVC standard. 
> 
> 3. Organization
> 
> The patent portfolio may require at least the
> following functions:
> 
> First, as Evaluation Facilitator, MPEG LA will make
> a
> call described in this announcement for the
> submission
> of patents for an evaluation of their essentiality
> by
> independent patent experts and inclusion in a joint
> license if determined to be essential and facilitate
> the evaluation process and convene the initial group
> of essential patent holders as described below.
> 
> Second, an Evaluator (identified below) who is a
> third
> party patent expert will evaluate patents for
> essentiality to the Proposed JVT/AVC standard (ITU-T
> FCD H.264 and ISO/IEC FCD 14496-10). Any party that
> believes it has essential patents is invited to
> submit
> them for evaluation and inclusion in accordance with
> the standard terms and procedures governing
> submissions. For each patent submitted, an
> evaluation
> fee of US $8,500.00 will be paid to MPEG LA, LLC,
> (as
> below) to cover costs of the patent expert's
> evaluation.
> 
> Third, an initial group of essential patent holders
> who have agreed to the terms governing the
> submission
> of patents and been found by the independent patent
> experts to have essential patents will be convened
> to
> prepare details of licensing terms. Evaluations will
> continue throughout the course of the License in
> order
> to include as much essential intellectual property
> as
> possible, but the initial group of essential patent
> holders/framers from among those who submit patents
> for evaluation by the initial deadline of October
> 11,
> 2002, will be determined and convened for the
> purpose
> of commencing the JVT Patent Portfolio License.
> 
> Fourth, the Licensing Administrator who is granted
> non-exclusive sublicensing rights from patent owners
> under licensed patents in order to sublicense those
> patents to JVT/AVC users, will actively promote the
> licensing program and distribute collected royalties
> to the patent owners. The Licensing Administrator
> will
> be chosen by the initial group of patent holders.
> 
> Fifth, an Administrative Committee consisting of
> representatives of the essential patent owners will
> monitor certain activities of a Licensing
> Administrator.
> 
> 4. Licensing details
> 
> To be determined by the representatives of the
> essential patent owners.
> 
> 5. Schedule (Initial Plan)
> 
> Initial patent submissions: by October 11, 2002
> (although patent submissions may continue to be
> submitted after that date, owners of essential
> patents
> in the initial group of patents submitted by the
> October 11 date will form the initial group of
> Licensors that will select a Licensing Administrator
> and determine the terms of license).
> 
> Evaluation: At least one patent submitted by each
> submitting party will be evaluated for its
> essentiality by November 11, 2002.
> 
> MPEG LA will convene a meeting of the initial patent
> holder group shortly thereafter.
> 
> Accordingly, MPEG LA hereby announces that any party
> that believes it has patents that are essential to
> the
> Proposed JVT/AVC standard (ITU-T FCD H.264 and
> ISO/IEC
> FCD 14496-10) and wishes to join the patent
> portfolio
> upon successful evaluation, is invited to submit
> such
> patents to the Evaluator (identified below),
> together
> with a statement confirming its agreement with the
> objectives and intention to abide by terms and
> procedures governing the patent submission process
> (initial patents to form initial Licensor group to
> be
> submitted by October 11, 2002), which may be
> obtained
> from Jane Tannenbaum, Director, Contract
> Administration (jtannenbaum at mpegla.com) or Jll
> McLain,
> Contract Administrator, (jmclain at mpegla.com), MPEG
> LA,
> LLC.
> 
> Evaluator: Dr. Kenneth Rubenstein and his team of
> independent patent experts, PROSKAUER ROSE LLP, 1585
> Broadway, New York, NY 10036-8299, Tel.
> 212-969-3000,
> Fax 212-969-2900, krubenstein at proskauer.com
> 
> MPEG LA, LLC
> 
> MPEG LA successfully pioneered one-stop technology
> standards licensing with a portfolio of essential
> patents for the international digital video
> compression standard known as MPEG-2, which it began
> licensing in 1997. One-stop technology standards
> licensing enables widespread technological
> implementation, interoperability and use of
> fundamental broad-based technologies covered by many
> patents owned by many patent holders. MPEG LA
> provides
> users with fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory
> access
> to these essential patents on a worldwide basis
> under
> a single license. In addition to MPEG-2, MPEG LA
> licenses portfolios of essential patents for the
> IEEE
> 
=== message truncated === 

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