Interestingly MPEG LA embodies both of the concerns with patent pools outlined above and by the DOJ in its approval of the patent pool’s licensing structure. First, MPEG LA may overtly inhibit the ability of its members to develop any technology that may compete with customers of the MPEG LA pool. Most notably, MPEG LA was involved in a dispute with pool- participant Google. In 2010 Google introduced WebM, an open-source solution to uploading videos to the web. Google designed WebM to serve as an alternative to H.264, the primary video compression technology in Microsoft and Apple devices that is covered by the MPEG LA patent pool. All three are members of the MPEG LA patent pool, and pay royalties to the company (although Apple contributed only one patent to the pool). MPEG LA asserted that Google’s WebM product practices on or infringes patents in the pool, and demanded that users of the WebM product pay royalties to the pool. A license from Google would not be enough. In fact, in early 2011 MPEG LA instructed patent owners to inform the pool of patents that might they might believe the WebM product uses. The DOJ initiated an investigation into whether MPEG LA is acting anticompetitively by trying to quash the Google WebM product through assertion of patents as a patent pool. The investigation appears to be on-going. ....

-C.

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• When Patent Pools Attack: Competitive Concerns from the Devolution of MPEG LA - Authored by: symbolset on Sunday, March 03 2013 @ 01:07 AM EST

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