[M4IF News] Press Release Licensing Additional Visual Profiles

[Rob Koenen]

People,
The following release marks the start of a process that will 
enable joint licensing of essential patents in 3 more MPEG-4 
Visual Profiles:
 * Simple Scalable
 * Advanced Simple
 * Fine Granular Scalability (FGS)
This is in addition to the following Profiles, for which licensing is 
slated to start in 2 months:
 * Simple
 * Core
- Advanced Simple, a superset of Simple, has the latest coding 
  effiency tools in MPEG-4, and supports rectangular video objects.
- Simple Scalable and FGS are scalable extensions of Simple 
  (Simple is the base layer). 
  FGS can also be used with Advanced Simple as a base layer.
- Core is a superset of Simple, adding B frames ('B-VOPs') and 
  arbitrary-shape objects.
This is an important milestone towards further deployment of MPEG-4 
technology.
Kind Regards,
Rob Koenen (President M4IF)
(I apologize for duplicate mails through multiiple reflectors)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
For Immediate Release					
CONTACT:
Lawrence Horn, MPEG LA, LLC
301.986.6660 
301.986.8575 Fax
lhorn   mpegla.com
MPEG LA® Announces M4IF Plan for Joint Licensing of Essential MPEG-4 Patents
(Denver, Colorado, US-14 November 2001) - The MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF)
has recommended that MPEG LA, LLC make the following worldwide announcement:
In furtherance of its plan aimed at providing fair, reasonable,
nondiscriminatory worldwide access under one license to patents that are
essential for implementing the international MPEG-4 Visual Standard, the
MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF) has recommended that MPEG LA, LLC, in its role
as Evaluation Administrator, call for the submission of patents for
evaluation of their essentiality to additional MPEG-4 Visual Standard
profiles, specifically Simple Scalable, Advanced Simple, and Fine
Granularity Scalable.
The Simple Scalable profile is generally described in ISO/IEC
14496-2:1999/AMD.1:2000(E) Tables 9-1 and 9-2 (pages 322 and 324).  The
Advanced Simple and Fine Granularity Scalable profiles are generally
described in ISO/IEC 14496-2:2001/AMD.2(E) Tables AMD2-13 and AMD2-14. These
latter tables can be found in the ISO document N3904, also styled "ISO/IEC
14496-1:2001/FDAM2" (pages 32-33).
Following is a summary of the approved plan:
1. Objective
To establish a portfolio of essential worldwide patents that are necessary
for implementation of the MPEG-4 Visual (Simple Scalable, Advanced Simple,
and Fine Grain Scalability) standard in order to provide all MPEG-4 Visual
users with fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to this technology
under one license.
2. Licensed patents
Essential patents will consist of those that are necessary for the Simple
Scalable (ISO/IEC 14496-2:1999/AMD.1:2000(E) Tables 9-1 and 9-2 [pages 322
and 324]), Advanced Simple and Fine Granularity Scalable (ISO/IEC
14496-2:2001/AMD.2(E) Tables AMD2-13 and AMD2-14, which can be found in the
ISO document N3904, also styled "ISO/IEC 14496-1:2001/FDAM2" [pages 32-33])
profiles of the MPEG-4 Visual Standard. 
3. Organization
The joint patent portfolio license may require at least three functions:
First, an Administrative Committee consisting of representatives of the
essential patent owners will meet to consider licensing terms and conditions
and monitor certain activities of a Licensing Administrator.  
Second, the Licensing Administrator, who is granted non-exclusive
sublicensing rights from patent owners under licensed patents, actively
promotes the licensing program and distributes collected royalties to the
patent owners.  The Licensing Administrator will be chosen by the initial
group of patent holders comprising the Administrative Committee.
Third, an Evaluator who is a neutral, third party patent expert will
evaluate patents for essentiality to the Simple Scalable (ISO/IEC
14496-2:1999/AMD.1:2000(E) Tables 9-1 and 9-2 [pages 322 and 324]), Advanced
Simple and Fine Granularity Scalable (ISO/IEC 14496-2:2001/AMD.2(E) Tables
AMD2-13 and AMD2-14, which can be found in the ISO document N3904, also
styled "ISO/IEC 14496-1:2001/FDAM2" [pages 32-33]) profiles of the MPEG-4
Visual Standard.  Any party that believes it has essential patents is
invited to submit them for evaluation and inclusion.  For each patent
submitted, an evaluation fee of US $8,500.00 will be paid to MPEG LA, LLC
(as below) to cover costs of the patent expert's evaluation.
Members of the Administrative Committee will be determined by the results of
the patent essentiality evaluation. 
4. Licensing details
To be determined by the Administrative Committee consisting of
representatives of the essential patent owners.
5. Extension of the scope of the licensed patents
On M4IF's recommendation and request, MPEG LA® earlier called for the
submission of patents for an evaluation of their essentiality to the
normative part of the Simple and Core profiles of the MPEG-4 Visual Standard
by an independent patent expert, and is currently facilitating the efforts
of essential patent owners to develop a joint license providing fair,
reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to their essential intellectual
property.
6. Schedule (Initial Plan)
Initial patent submissions:  by March 1, 2024 (although patent submissions
may continue to be submitted after that date, owners of essential patents in
the initial group of patents submitted by the March 1 date will form the
initial group of Licensors and Administrative Committee that will select a
Licensing Administrator and determine the terms of license).
Evaluation:  March - June 2002
Upon the above consensus, M4IF recommended that MPEG LA® make this worldwide
announcement.
Accordingly, MPEG LA® hereby announces that any company which believes it
has patents that are essential to the Simple Scalable, Advanced Simple and
Fine Granularity Scalable profiles of the MPEG-4 Visual Standard (as
described above) and wishes to join the patent pool upon successful
evaluation is invited to submit such patents to the Evaluator (identified
below) by March 1, 2002, together with a statement confirming its agreement
with the objectives and intention to abide by terms and procedures governing
the patent submission process. Terms and procedures governing patent
submissions 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).
Evaluator:
Dr. Kenneth Rubenstein
PROSKAUER ROSE LLP
1585 Broadway
New York, NY10036-8299
Tel. 212-969-3000
Fax. 212-969-2900
krubenstein   proskauer.com <mailto:krubenstein   proskauer.com> 
#   #   #
Overview of the MPEG-4 Standard
MPEG-4 is an ISO/IEC multi-media representation standard developed by its
Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG).  MPEG also developed MPEG-1, which
makes possible interactive video on CD-ROM and is present on virtually every
personal computer, and MPEG-2, the core compression technology underlying
the efficient transmission, storage and display of digitized moving images
and sound tracks on which high definition television (HDTV), Digital Video
Broadcasting (DVB), direct broadcast by satellite (DBS), digital cable
television systems, multichannel-multipoint distribution services (MMDS),
personal computer video, digital versatile discs (DVD), interactive media
and other forms of digital video delivery, storage, transport and display
are based.  
MPEG-4 is the result of yet another international effort involving hundreds
of researchers and engineers from all over the world.  Building on the
successes of MPEG's earlier standards, MPEG-4 enables integration of the
production, distribution and content access features of digital television,
interactive graphics applications and interactive multimedia across internet
protocol, wireless, low bitrate, broadcast, satellite, cable and mobile
environments.  With MPEG-4, all content elements can be maintained as
discrete objects enabling richer interactivity and use across many different
devices   More information about MPEG-4 can be found at MPEG's home page
<http://mpeg.telecomitalialab.com> and at the home page of the MPEG-4
Industry Forum <http://www.m4if.org/>. 
MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF)
While M4IF recommended that MPEG LA® take the steps as described in this
release, all steps described herein are carried out outside and
independently of M4IF.  M4IF encourages all and any steps that will lead to
easy access to reasonable and non-discriminatory licenses for patents
essential to the MPEG-4 Standard.
The M4IF was organized on May 29, 2024 as a not-for-profit corporation "To
further the adoption and widespread use of the MPEG-4 Standard, by
establishing MPEG-4 as an accepted standard among application developers,
service providers, content creators and end users." Based in Switzerland,
M4IF is open to all parties that support this goal and pay the yearly
membership fee of (US) $3,000.  M4IF carries on activities outside of
ISO/IEC's scope, such as:
*	Promoting the MPEG-4 Standard, and serving as a single point of
information on MPEG-4 technology, products and services;
*	Initiating discussions leading to the potential establishment of
patent portfolios outside of M4IF in order to grant licenses to all
applicants throughout the world under reasonable terms and conditions that
are demonstrably free of any unfair competition;
*	Organization of MPEG-4 exhibitions and tutorials;
*	Carrying out interoperability tests. 
Since its official establishment, over 100 companies have joined the Forum.
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
approximately 350 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>.