[MPEGIF Discuss] MPEG LA Announces Terms of Joint H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Patent License

[Craig Birkmaier]

At 10:09 AM +0100 11/18/03, Rob Koenen \(MPEGIF\) wrote:
>Discuss list,
>
>The release below was issued yesterday.
>
>As I have stated before, it is positive that apparently the need for 
>rapid availability of these terms is being understood, and that the 
>licensors seem to have recognized a number of concerns that have 
>been raised in the context of the MPEG-4 part 2 license.
>
>As in the past, we need to understand the exact consequences. MPEGIF 
>welcomes discussions on this list on the terms as the have been 
>released by the two licensing agents working on a joint AVC license. 
>A summary of relevant news links can be found here: 
><http://www.m4if.org/patents/>http://www.m4if.org/patents/
>
>We are also seeking to host a phone Q&A session with the licensing 
>agents in the near future, for MPEGIF members.

I guess this was to be expected., Let's hope the "other" guys can 
produce something without all of the extra baggage. My guess is that 
the DBS service providers are going to have a very difficult time 
dealing with the subscriber use fees...
Perhaps someone can answer the following question. It appears that 
this license only covers the new AVC codec. So the question is, will 
any other MPEG-4 license be needed in order to implement this 
standard?
I assume that it would be possible to transport AVC bitstreams using 
MPEG-2 systems. This would require an MPEG-2 systems license, but (I 
assume) no other MPEG-4  license (other than for audio if the AAC 
codec is being used).
Is this a correct interpretation?
Regards
Craig Birkmaier
Pcube Labs