[M4IF News] MPEG-4 Systems Essential Patent Holders Meet to Develop a Joint L icense

[Rob Koenen]

Dear M4IF-ers,
After the news on Visual and Audio licensing, there is now also news from
the Systems side. MPEGLA, through Larry Horn, has released the news below 
It has been on the M4IF website for a couple of days already.
I am passing it on it you because this is important news -- I was happy
to receive it.
The group has now met two times in short sucession. I hope it will keep 
such an aggressive schedule, so that licensing can start within a couple 
of months. The world is looking for licensing to begin in January, with 
visual, but MPEG-4 can only be deployed if licenses to all of its parts 
can be obtained.
We all eagerly await further news.
Kind Regards,
Rob
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News Release
For Immediate Release		CONTACT:
					Lawrence Horn
					MPEG LA, LLC
					1.301.986.6660 
					1.301.986.8575 Fax
					lhorn   mpegla.com
MPEG-4 Systems Essential Patent Holders Meet to Develop a Joint License
(Denver, Colorado, US - 1 November 2023) - The MPEG-4 Systems Essential
Patent Holders Group (M4SystemsPHG) consisting of six essential patent
holders met for the first time on September 10, 2001.  MPEG LA®, which acts
as group facilitator, convened the meeting following an independent patent
expert's finding that each of the six companies owns one or more patents
essential to the international MPEG-4 Systems Standard.  The group's
objective is to develop a one-stop license providing fair, reasonable,
nondiscriminatory worldwide access to this essential intellectual property
in order to foster widespread implementation, interoperability and use of
this important technology.  A second meeting was held October 30, 2001.
The M4SystemsPHG's objective is to include as much essential MPEG-4 Systems
intellectual property as possible in a one-stop license.  Therefore, any
party that believes it has patents that are essential to the "MPEG-4 Systems
Standard" (ISO/IEC 14496-1 Information technology - Coding of audio-visual
objects - Part 1: Systems, including ISO/IEC 14496-1, ISO/IEC 14496-1/Amd.1,
ISO/IEC 14496-1/Amd.2 and ISO/IEC 14496-1/COR1)) and wishes to join upon
successful evaluation, is invited to submit such patents to the independent
Patent Evaluator together with a statement confirming its agreement with the
objectives and intention to abide by terms and procedures governing the
patent submission process, which may be obtained from Lawrence A. Horn, Vice
President, Licensing and Business Development, MPEG LA, LLC
(lhorn   mpegla.com,  phone 1-301-986-6660, fax 1-301-986-8575).
#  #  #
MPEG LA, LLC
MPEG LA* successfully pioneered one-stop technology standards licensing,
starting with a portfolio of essential patents for the international digital
video compression standard known as MPEG-2, which it began licensing in
1997. One-stop technology standards licensing enables widespread
technological implementation, interoperability and use of fundamental
broad-based technologies covered by many patents owned by many different
patent holders.  MPEG LA* provides users with fair, reasonable,
nondiscriminatory access to these essential patents on a worldwide basis
under a single license.  The MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License now has more
than 340 licensees and includes almost 400 MPEG-2 essential patents owned by
19 patent holders.  As the legal and business template for one-stop
technology standards licensing, MPEG LA* also provides an innovative way to
achieve fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to patent rights for
other technology standards - the high-speed transfer digital interconnect
standard known as IEEE 1394 and the terrestrial digital television standard
used in Europe and Asia known as DVB-T.  In addition, MPEG LA® has been
asked to facilitate the development of joint licenses for MPEG-4 and other
emerging technologies.  The company is based in Denver, CO and has offices
in Chevy Chase, MD (Washington DC metropolitan area), the greater San
Francisco area and London, England.  For more information, please refer to
<http://www.mpegla.com/>, <http://www.1394la.com/> and
<http://www.dvbla.com/>.