MPEG LA
Encyclopedia
MPEG LA, LLC
, is a Denver-based firm that licenses patent pool
s covering essential patent
s required
for use of the MPEG-2
, MPEG-4
Visual (Part 2), IEEE 1394
, VC-1
, ATSC and AVC/H.264
standards. The firm is also working towards pooled licensing of LTE
patents pertaining to 4th generation cellular telephony
and patents essential for WebM
.
MPEG LA is not affiliated with MPEG
, the Moving Picture Experts Group.
s such as Theora
and VP8
infringe on patents owned by its licensors, without disclosing the affected patent or patents. Currently, they are calling out for “any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VP8 video codec”.
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. According to MPEG-LA, the United States District Court for the Central District of California
dismissed the suit with prejudice on November 29, 2010.
Limited liability company
A limited liability company is a flexible form of enterprise that blends elements of partnership and corporate structures. It is a legal form of company that provides limited liability to its owners in the vast majority of United States jurisdictions...
, is a Denver-based firm that licenses patent pool
Patent pool
In patent law, a patent pool is a consortium of at least two companies agreeing to cross-license patents relating to a particular technology. The creation of a patent pool can save patentees and licensees time and money, and, in case of blocking patents, it may also be the only reasonable method...
s covering essential patent
Essential patent
An essential patent is a patent which discloses and claims one or more inventions that are required to practice a given industry standard. Standardisation bodies, therefore, often require members disclose and grant licenses to patents and pending patent applications that they own and that cover a...
s required
for use of the MPEG-2
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
, MPEG-4
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
Visual (Part 2), IEEE 1394
IEEE 1394 interface
The IEEE 1394 interface is a serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer, frequently used by personal computers, as well as in digital audio, digital video, automotive, and aeronautics applications. The interface is also known by the brand...
, VC-1
VC-1
VC-1 is the informal name of the SMPTE 421M video codec standard, which was initially developed as a proprietary video format by Microsoft before it was released as a formal SMPTE standard video format on April 3, 2006...
, ATSC and AVC/H.264
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...
standards. The firm is also working towards pooled licensing of LTE
3GPP Long Term Evolution
3GPP Long Term Evolution, usually referred to as LTE, is a standard for wireless communication of high-speed data for mobile phones and data terminals. It is based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA network technologies, increasing the capacity and speed using new modulation techniques...
patents pertaining to 4th generation cellular telephony
4G
In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to the 3G and 2G families of standards. In 2009, the ITU-R organization specified the IMT-Advanced requirements for 4G standards, setting peak speed requirements for 4G service at 100 Mbit/s...
and patents essential for WebM
WebM
WebM is an audio-video format designed to provide a royalty-free, open video compression format for use with HTML5 video. The project's development is sponsored by Google....
.
MPEG LA is not affiliated with MPEG
Moving Picture Experts Group
The Moving Picture Experts Group is a working group of experts that was formed by ISO and IEC to set standards for audio and video compression and transmission. It was established in 1988 by the initiative of Hiroshi Yasuda and Leonardo Chiariglione, who has been from the beginning the Chairman...
, the Moving Picture Experts Group.
Criticism
MPEG LA has claimed that video codecVideo codec
A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. The compression usually employs lossy data compression. Historically, video was stored as an analog signal on magnetic tape...
s such as Theora
Theora
Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container....
and VP8
VP8
VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a...
infringe on patents owned by its licensors, without disclosing the affected patent or patents. Currently, they are calling out for “any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VP8 video codec”.
In May 2010, Nero AG
Nero AG
Nero is a global computer software company headquartered in Karlsbad, Germany. It is perhaps most well-known for its burning software, Nero Burning ROM.-History:The company was founded as Ahead Software GmbH in 1995 by Richard Lesser....
filed an antitrust suit
Competition law
Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, is law that promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies....
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. According to MPEG-LA, the United States District Court for the Central District of California
United States District Court for the Central District of California
The United States District Court for the Central District of California serves over 18 million people in southern and central California, making it the largest federal judicial district by population...
dismissed the suit with prejudice on November 29, 2010.
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Licensors
The following organizations hold one or more patents in the H.264/AVC patent pool.- Apple Inc.
- DAEWOODaewooDaewoo or the Daewoo Group was a major South Korean chaebol . It was founded on 22 March 1967 as Daewoo Industrial and was dismantled by the Korean government in 1999...
- Dolby LaboratoriesDolby LaboratoriesDolby Laboratories, Inc. , often shortened to Dolby Labs, is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression.-History:...
Licensing Corporation - Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
- France TélécomFrance TélécomFrance Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...
, société anonyme - Fraunhofer-GesellschaftFraunhofer SocietyThe Fraunhofer Society is a German research organization with 60 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science . It employs around 18,000, mainly scientists and engineers, with an annual research budget of about €1.65 billion...
zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. - Fujitsu LimitedFujitsuis a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
- Hitachi, Ltd.HitachiHitachi is a multinational corporation specializing in high-technology.Hitachi may also refer to:*Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan*Hitachi province, former province of Japan*Prince Hitachi and Princess Hitachi, members of the Japanese imperial family...
- Koninklijke Philips ElectronicsPhilipsKoninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
N.V. - LG ElectronicsLG ElectronicsLG Electronics is a global electronics and telecommunications company headquartered in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea. The company operates its business through five divisions: mobile communications, home entertainment, home appliance, air conditioning and business solution...
Inc. - Microsoft CorporationMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
- Mitsubishi Electric CorporationMitsubishi Electricis a multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of the Mitsubishi Group....
- NTT docomoNTT DoCoMois the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
- Nippon Telegraph and Telephone CorporationNippon Telegraph and Telephone, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....
- Panasonic Corporation
- Robert Bosch GmbHRobert Bosch GmbHRobert Bosch GmbH is a multinational engineering and electronics company headquartered in Gerlingen, near Stuttgart, Germany. It is the world's largest supplier of automotive components...
- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.Samsung ElectronicsSamsung Electronics is a South Korean multinational electronics and information technology company headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul...
- Scientific-Atlanta Vancouver Company
- Sedna Patent Services, LLC
- Sharp CorporationSharp Corporationis a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...
- Siemens AGSiemensSiemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
- Sony CorporationSony, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
- EricssonEricssonEricsson , one of Sweden's largest companies, is a provider of telecommunication and data communication systems, and related services, covering a range of technologies, including especially mobile networks...
- The Trustees of Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in the City of New YorkNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and... - Toshiba CorporationToshibais a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...
- Victor Company of JapanJVC, usually referred to as JVC, is a Japanese international consumer and professional electronics corporation based in Yokohama, Japan which was founded in 1927...
, Limited