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End of Standards in the US | 235 comments | Create New Account

Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.

End of Standards in the US

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 26 2013 @ 08:42 AM EST

If Microsoft and Apple are allowed to get injunctions over defacto patents (like FAT and square phones with rounded corners), and companies with standard essential patents are not, then the obvious result is that all American companies should cease joining standards. That way, at least, everyone's patents are on the same footing.

Personally, I feel that either:
a) this will wind up in the old style patent pools where everyone cross-licenses everyone else's patent for minor fees, or
b) all patents will be free (or effectively free), or
c) it all causes gridlock.

I think the point that many American's miss is that most of the new patents are going to foreign companies. Options a and c could make it really tough for startups of the future.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

FAT patents ==> long filenames - Authored by: hardmath on Tuesday, February 26 2013 @ 11:39 AM EST
End of Standards in the US - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 27 2013 @ 08:26 AM EST

Standards essential

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 26 2013 @ 02:54 PM EST

Disclaimer: I have never had a license from MPEG-LA. I did investigate
a few years back when there was some sabre rattling and it appeared
we might need a license. My conclusion was we didn't, and either
I was right or we flew under the radar.

AFAICT MPEG-LA are just a one stop shop for selling licenses. They sell
licenses for patent "pools" which purport to cover the functionality
required by different sectors of the industry. They handle royalty
collection and disbursement to the pool member companies. They
absolve themselves from any responsibility that the pool license is
sufficient for whatever the licensee wishes to do.

MPEG-LA do not enforce licenses. They leave it to the patent holders
to take whatever action those companies think fit against infringers.

I don't know what all standards authorities say about patent pools.
I do know the joint ISO/ITU standards for H.263 and H.264 bear
an annexe listing all the entities who have declared themselves to
hold patents that -may- be essential to practice the standard.
ISO/ITU recommend that anyone wishing to use the standard satisfy
themselves on their requirements to comply with any patents.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Standards essential - Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, February 27 2013 @ 01:43 AM EST

Standards essential

Authored by: Imaginos1892 on Wednesday, February 27 2013 @ 02:04 PM EST

MPEG-LA is a consortium of big content producers determined
to prevent new, small content creators from cropping up to
compete with them. Like the EULA on Sony video cameras that
prohibits any commercial use. That's why we should be using
free standards like Ogg and VP8, and getting them as wide
spread as possible. Even AAC is an open standard; only the
FairPlay DRM scheme is proprietary, and Apple has stopped
using it.
-----------------
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

AAC - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, February 27 2013 @ 04:21 PM EST

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