DENVER—MPEG LA, LLC has announced that its AVC Patent Portfolio License (“AVC License”) has been expanded to provide coverage for the entire Multiview Video Coding (“MVC”) portion of the AVC specifications, including the MVC profiles covered by MPEG LA’s MVC License.

Although coverage has been expanded, the AVC License royalty rates and annual caps remain unchanged.

The MPEG LA’s AVC/H.264 Patent Portfolio License provides access to essential patent rights for the AVC/H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10) digital video coding standard (including Multiview Video Coding (MVC) profiles) used in set-top boxes, media player and other personal computer software, mobile devices including telephones and mobile television receivers, Blu-ray DiscTM players and recorders, Blu-ray video optical discs, game machines, personal media player devices, still and video cameras, subscription and pay-per view or title video services, free broadcast television services and other products.

More information can be found here. 

DENVER—MPEG LA, LLC has announced that the VVC Patent Portfolio License (“VVC License” or “License”) is now available. The joint license includes patents that are essential to the Versatile Video Coding (VVC), which is also known as H.266 and MPEG-I Part 3 standard.

“We commend these patent owners for stepping up in such a short time to establish this important license embracing all manner of VVC applications with a simplicity that the market can understand, and we welcome all VVC essential patent owners to join them,” said Larry Horn, President and CEO of MPEG LA. “Once again, MPEG LA’s VVC License demonstrates MPEG LA’s continued commitment to striking a balance between patent holders and implementers to make VVC widely available to everyone on the same reasonable, transparent and evenly applied terms consistent with what the market has come to expect of us. Now more than ever, the market for next generation video needs a pool license it can trust.”

VVC provides increased compression with significant bitrate reduction, giving consumers enhanced speed and efficiency in products that encode and decode video for Internet, television and mobile transmission, reception and use, the group said. 

VVC is capable of delivering 4K to 8K and higher resolution with High-Definition Television (HDTV), Ultra-High-Definition Television (UHD), High Dynamic Range (HDR) and omnidirectional 360° video.

The initial patent owners to MPEG LA’s VVC License are: b<>com; British Broadcasting Corporation; Digital Insights Inc.; FG Innovation Company Limited; Hanwha Techwin Co., Ltd.; Koninklijke KPN N.V.; Nippon Hoso Kyokai; Orange; Siemens Corp.; Tagivan II LLC; and Vidyo, Inc.

MPEG LA also noted that it encourages any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VVC standard to submit them for an evaluation by MPEG LA’s patent experts. Interested VVC patent owners may request a copy of the terms and procedures governing patent submissions here.

The VVC Patent Portfolio License and a summary of the License terms may be obtained here.

 DENVER—In an important development that should simplify and speed up the launch of NextGen TV receivers and consumer products, MPEG LA has announced the availability of the ATSC 3.0 Patent Portfolio License providing a one-stop way of licensing patents that are essential to the next generation broadcast standard developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). 

The initial ATSC 3.0 Patent Portfolio License for the ATSC 3.0 standard includes essential patents from 13 worldwide organizations. 

“MPEG LA is proud to continue its role in support of the broadcast industry’s next generation terrestrial broadcast system that began with our licenses for the ATSC 1.0 standard and the MPEG-2 video compression standard used in ATSC 1.0,” said MPEG LA president and CEO Larry Horn. “As a convenience to ATSC 3.0 implementers and the potential that ATSC 3.0 brings to market, our ATSC 3.0 License will continue MPEG LA’s rich and reliable tradition of addressing the market’s need for transactional efficiency and predictability in accessing necessary intellectual property rights owned by many different organizations under a single license. We are especially proud to be joined in this effort by leading ATSC 3.0 developers from all over the world.”

The launch of the ATSC 3.0 patent pool was applauded by One Media, LLC, a joint venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Coherent Logix and a major proponent and developer of ATSC 3.0 technologies. 

One Media noted that the formation of the ATSC 3.0 Patent Pool by MPEG LA will dramatically simplify the efficient licensing of the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast technology in multiple-receive devices, easing the distribution and deployment process.

“The ability to offer this remarkable technology to consumer equipment manufacturers in a simple, all-encompassing license should ease the process of deploying sophisticated new receivers to consumers worldwide,” said Jerald Fritz, executive vice president of One Media. “We congratulate MPEG LA for helping shepherd multiple international entities toward this common goal.” 

Patent pools provide for a consortium of companies agreeing to combine related intellectual property and offer “one-stop licensing” to vendors that want to include the technology in their equipment for sale to the public. MPEG LA has been a pioneer in the formation and management of these types of pools, establishing reasonable royalty rates for licensing patents needed to implement the technology, One Media said. 

The initial patent owners to MPEG LA’s ATSC 3.0 License are CableTelevision Laboratories, Inc.; Cerinet USA Inc.; Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC), part of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada; Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation; Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.; Koninklijke KPN N.V.; Koninklijke Philips N.V.; NEC Corporation; Nippon Hoso Kyokai; ONE Media, LLC; Panasonic Corporation; Shanghai National Engineering Research Center of Digital Television Co., Ltd (NERC-DTV); and Sun Patent Trust.

The ATSC 3.0 Patent Portfolio License and a summary of the License terms may be obtained here.

MPEG LA noted that its objective is to offer worldwide access to as many ATSC 3.0 essential patents as possible to everyone on the same terms under a single license. It is also encouraging owners of patents that are essential to the ATSC 3.0 standard to contact MPEG LA so that their patents can be evaluated by MPEG LA’s patent experts and included in the License if they are deemed to be essential. 

Interested ATSC 3.0 patent owners may request a copy of the terms and procedures governing patent submissions here.

DENVER—With the ATSC 3.0 next-gen TV standard on the horizon, MPEG LA has put out a call for patents “essential to ATSC 3.0 standards” in order to create a joint license to the intellectual property of ATSC 3.0 developers.

“MPEG LA is pleased to begin the process of creating an efficient one-stop license offering access to key intellectual property rights that will help make ATSC 3.0’s benefits available to consumers without delay,” said Larry Horn, president and CEO of MPEG LA.

Anyone that believes they have patents essential to the ATSC 3.0 standards is invited to submit to MPEG LA by Sept. 8. Only issued patents will be included in the license; patent applications with claims that owners believe are essential to the ATSC 3.0 standards and likely to issue in a patent also may be submitted in order to participate in the license development process.

Visit MPEG LA’s website for more information regarding the submission process.

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo.