MPEG-4 Use Fee On Consumer iappliance Services Eliminated

By EETimes News Services
iApplianceWeb
(07/30/02, 12:56:00 AM EDT)

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- In a move that could open up cost effective multimedia on a wide range of consumer entertainment iappliances, MPEG LA has unveiled new terms for MPEG-4 licensing agreements, eliminating the so-called "use fee" that caused an uproar when the idea was proposed earlier this year.

The use fee license originally proposed by the independent licensing agency for MPEG-4 patent holders would have required service providers to pay a hourly fee for the playback or download of any MPEG-4 stream for which a viewer was charged. But under the new licensing agreement,cable TV, digital satellite and other providers will pay MPEG LA a $1.25 royalty for the right to use encoded MPEG-4 visual information.

Meanwhile, manufacturers of a variety of entertainment iappliance devices, such as handsets, set-top boxes, DVD players or other equipment that encode or decode MPEG-4 video data in hardware or software will pay a $0.25 royalty per decoder and/or encoder, as previously announced.

MPEG LA will offer three separate licenses agreements, described at the MPEG LA Web site: the MPEG-4 Systems Patent Portfolio License; the MPEG-J Patent Portfolio License, and the previously announced MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License.

Larry Horn, vice president of licensing and business development at MPEG LA, said the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio License offers all current MPEG-4 visual standard profiles, including Advanced Simple, a set of tools that enables the highest coding efficiency.

Advanced Simple represents "a sweet spot for streaming applications today," said Rob Koenen, president of the MPEG-4 Industry Forum, which promotes the use of the MPEG-4 standard.

Koenen said the forum welcomes the new licensing structure, noting that the licensing changes make MPEG-4 "much more palatable [for the industry] to take licenses." However, the changes are "not the end of the story," Koenen said. The new licensing terms do not cover free-to-air broadcasts, for example.

New services and usage models may also need to be considered, Koenen said. These issues may require MPEG LA to "sit down with licensees,work out an appropriate licensing model and make further adjustments to the licensing structure," he said.