“In February I reported on MPEG LA’s call for submissions of patents deemed essential to the VP8 video codec, a key element of Google’s WebM initiative,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents, “I had already expressed doubts about Google’s claims of WebM/VP8 being unencumbered by third-party patents shortly after WebM was announced more than a year ago. The commercial issue here is that Google’s claims of WebM being ‘royalty-free’ would be reduced to absurdity the moment that any patent holder rightfully starts to collect royalties on it.”
“I just became aware of a new streamingmedia.com interview with MPEG LA. MPEG LA serves as a one-stop shop for licenses to AVC/H.264 and other multimedia codecs,” Mueller reports. “In that interview, MPEG LA stated affirmatively that there have been submissions relating to the February call, and disclosed, at a high level, a preliminary result of the vetting process that commenced subsequently to the submissions period: Thus far, 12 parties have been found to have patents essential to the VP8 standard.”
Mueller remarks, “12 parties — that’s really a high number, and it could even increase in the future.”
Read more in the full article here.
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