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Denver-based patent pool outfit MPEG LA, which is responsible for the royalty-saddled H.264 video codec, is trying to form a pool of “patents essential to the VP8 video codec specification.” It is a clear attempt at sabotaging the open-source, VP8-based WebM video format backed by Google against H.264 in the ongoing battle for HTML5 video supremacy. Not the one to be intimated, Google has picked up the gauntlet thrown down by MPEG LA and is ready to defend WebM with a patent pool of its own. The Internet giant today announced the formation of the WebM Community Cross-License (CCL) Initiative.
Effectively a defensive patent pool, CCL currently boasts 17 founding members, including Google, AMD, Cisco, Mozilla, Opera, LG and Samsung. Each CCL member is required to license all those patents in its possession that are essential to the WebM project to other members.
“CCL members are joining this effort because they realize that the entire web ecosystem--users, developers, publishers, and device makers--benefits from a high-quality, community developed, open-source media format,” wrote Matt Frost, senior business product manager for the WebM project, in a blog post Monday. “We look forward to working with CCL members and the web standards community to advance WebM's role in HTML5 video.”
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