MPEG Licensing Administration, LLC
TypePrivate
IndustryLicensing administration
Founded1996 (1996)
DefunctMay 2, 2023 (2023-05-02)
Headquarters
Denver, Colorado
,
US
Key people
Larry Horn
ProductsPatent licenses
Websitewww.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]

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

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 patents Expired patents Total patents[38]
Panasonic Corporation 1,054 416 1,470
Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1,033 267 1,300
LG Electronics 871 130 1001
Dolby Laboratories 1014 414 1428
Toshiba 59 336 395
Microsoft 95 145 240
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (including NTT Docomo) 234 4 238
Sony 77 77 154
Fraunhofer Society 208 16 224
Google 5 134 139
GE Video Compression 136 0 136
Fujitsu 92 14 106
Mitsubishi Electric 44 56 100
Tagivan II LLC 82 0 82
Samsung Electronics 17 46 63
Maxell 54 2 56
Philips 6 41 47
Vidyo 41 2 43
Ericsson 1 33 34
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea 10 25 35
Siemens 12 39 51
The Trustees of Columbia University in New York City 0 26 26
Polycom 2 20 22
Robert Bosch GmbH 0 22 22
Apple 7 2 9
JVC Kenwood 3 5 8
Orange S.A. 13 7 20
Sharp Corporation 5 0 5
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) 1 4 5
Cisco Systems 3 1 4
ZTE Corporation 0 2 2
Cisco Technology 1 0 1
Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. 0 1 1
Hewlett-Packard Company 0 1 1
Beijing Xiaomi Mobile Software Co. 5 1 6
B1 Institute of Image Technology 6 0 6
Newracom, Inc. 0 1 1
NEC 5 1 6
Vestel Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. 1 0 1
Total (All Manufacturers) 5197 2291 7488

HEVC licensors

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

HEVC patent holders (as of July 2019)[40]
Organization[41] Active patents Expired patents Total patents[40]
Samsung Electronics 3,550 4 3,554
M&K Holdings[42] 907 0 907
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (including NTT Docomo) 878 2 880
JVC Kenwood Corporation 628 0 628
Infobridge Pte. Ltd.[43] 572 0 572
SK Telecom (including SK Planet) 380 0 380
KT Corp 289 0 289
NEC Corporation 219 0 219
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) of Korea 208 0 208
Canon Inc. 180 0 180
Tagivan II 162 0 162
Fujitsu 144 1 145
Kyung Hee University 103 0 103
Apple 69 0 69
Intellectual Discovery Co. 67 0 67
Maxell 60 0 60
IBEX PT Holdings 58 0 58
Vidyo 41 0 41
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) 38 0 38
HUMAX Holdings 32 0 32
Kwangwoon University 24 0 24
Siemens 13 8 21
Korean Broadcasting System 20 0 20
Orange S.A. 20 0 20
BBC 19 0 19
The Trustees of Columbia University in New York City 0 16 16
Sejong University 13 0 13
Korea Aerospace University 12 0 12
Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology 10 0 10
Sungkyunkwan University 8 0 8
Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK) 7 0 7
Sky Media Tech, Inc. 3 0 3
Digital Insights Inc. 2 0 2
Alpha Digitech 1 0 1
MIT 1 0 1
Newracom (Newratek) 0 1 1
Total (All Manufacturers) 8738 32 8770

VC-1 licensors

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

Organization Active patents Expired patents Total patents[45]
Microsoft 262 204 466
Panasonic 5 117 122
LG Electronics 11 85 96
Samsung Electronics 4 92 96
Dolby Laboratories 9 95 104
Philips 0 77 77
Hitachi 0 60 60
Mitsubishi Electric 0 52 52
Sony 0 28 28
JVC Kenwood 0 25 25
Toshiba 0 21 21
Fujitsu 0 20 20
Telenor 0 19 19
Siemens 2 16 18
AT&T Intellectual Property 0 16 16
Sun Patent Trust 0 12 12
Sharp Corporation 0 8 8
Orange S.A. 0 7 7
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone 0 4 4
Pantech 0 4 4
ZTE 0 1 1
Total (All Manufacturers) 293 963 1256

See also

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
  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
  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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