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Denver-based patent pool outfit MPEG LA, which licenses the H.264 codec, has called upon holders of “patents essential to the VP8 video codec” to join the VP8 patent pool it’s trying to assemble. As some of you might recall, MPEG LA has time and again questioned VP8’s royalty freeness, all along threatening a VP8 patent pool.
“In order to participate in the creation of, and determine licensing terms for, a joint VP8 patent license, any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VP8 video codec specification is invited to submit them for a determination of their essentiality by MPEG LA’s patent evaluators,” MPEG LA announced in a news release.
“Although only issued patents will be included in the license, in order to participate in the license development process, patent applications with claims that their owners believe are essential to the specification and likely to issue in a patent also may be submitted.”
The VP8 video codec is the bedrock of the open-source WebM video format erected by Google to challenge the dominance of the royalty-encumbered H.264 encoder in absence of a baseline standard for HTML5 video. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Google has an opinion on MPEG LA’s latest move.
"MPEG LA has alluded to a VP8 pool since WebM launched - this is nothing new," Google said in an email statement it sent to The Register. "The web succeeds with open, community-developed innovation, and the WebM Project brings the same principles to web video.
"The vast majority of the industry supports free and open development, and we’re in the process of forming a broad coalition of hardware and software companies who commit to not assert any IP claims against WebM. We are firmly committed to the project and establishing an open codec for HTML5 video.”
Comments are closed on this article
damicatz
February 13, 2011 at 9:41pm
The US Constitution does not permit corporations to hold patents or copyright. The constitution specifically states that artists and inventors may hold those things for the purpose of promoting the progress of the arts and sciences.
Corporations neither invent nor create. At best, they organize people together to do these things but they themselves are not people (despite what the Republicon and corporatist supreme court might say). Patents and copyright were intended to help the little guy but instead, they do the exact opposite as so called "intellectual property" is used by large corporations to shut down any potential upstart competetion.
Maximillian_Of_...
February 12, 2011 at 1:18am
Quote:
The VP8 video codec is the bedrock of the open-source WebM video format erected by Google to challenge the dominance of the royalty-encumbered H.246 encoder
Its H.264
Thanks in advance
