Schiphol, the Netherlands, 28 March 2024 - On 25 March 2000, the MPEG-4 Industry Forum, M4IF, approved its Statutes in the presence of 95 representatives of MPEG-4 industry world-wide. The goal of the Forum is

"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."

M4IF is open to all parties that support the goal of M4IF. The forum will be officially established, on May 29^th, as a not-for-profit organisation based in Switzerland. This is the day before the next (3^rd) meeting, which takes place on 30 May in Geneva, CH. The M4IF in a way complements ISO/IEC MPEG (the Moving Picture Experts Group), carrying out activities that are outside of ISO/IEC's scope.

The second meeting was attended by over 50 companies from 14 countries. The meeting was held one day after the MPEG meeting, but many attendants made the trip to the Netherlands from the USA and the Far East for this day alone. The main result, next to the approval of the Statutes, is the progress of the Patent Workgroup, chaired by Takuyo Kogure of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., towards initiating licensing schemes for MPEG-4 technology. While initiated by M4IF, licensing of MPEG-4 technology will be run by patent owners, independently from M4IF. The Patent Workgroup has activities in the area of Visual, Audio and Systems tools. The discussions on MPEG-4 Visual will result in announcing a world wide call to submit patent claims to an independent evaluator, as a first step to such a patent pool. A separate study group was set-up to study licensing schemes for downloadable software decoders. This study will entail a workshop, to be held on May 29th in Geneva.

The Web site of the forum, hosted by Telexis Corp of Canada, is http://www.m4if.org

Activities of M4IF will include:

• Promoting the 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 pools outside of M4IF, that should grant a license to an unlimited number of applicants throughout the world under reasonable terms and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair competition;
• Organization of MPEG-4 exhibitions and tutorials. The first event is in Geneva from May 28 - May 30, see http://www.m4if.org/iscas/index.php. The exhibition space show MPEG-4 products from established companies as well as start-ups, including audio and video players, authoring tools, facial animation, and more;
• Creating industrial focus around the standard - which MPEG-4 Profiles to use in which market?

To help potential customers in choosing products, M4IF will have a logo that can be used with MPEG-4 conformant products. All conformant products are eligible, regardless of whether the manufacturer is an M4IF member.

More information:
Rob Koenen (Chairman of the Temporary Steering Committee of M4IF)
KPN Research, the Netherlands
tel +31 6 13 22 83 17
[email protected]

Alphabetical list of companies present at the 2nd MPEG-4 Industry Forum meeting:

Apple Computer, Inc.
AT&T; Labs
blaxxun interactive AG
Canon Inc.
CSELT
Deutsche Telekom, T-Nova,Berkom
DiamondBack Vision, Inc.
DIRECTV, Inc.
DynaPel Labs (IDT)
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute
EPFL
Ericsson Mobile Communications AB
France Telecom
Fraunhofer Institut
Fujitsu Limited.
GMV Network
Harmonic Lightwaves
Hewlett Packard Labs
Hitachi, Ltd.
Hyundai Electronics
IBM
Instituto Superior Técnico
Intel Corporation
InterTrust Technologies International
JVC
KPN Research
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.,Ltd.
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Motorola
Nanyang Technological University Singapore
NEC Corporation
NeoMagic
Nogatech Ltd.
Nokia
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
Philips
Samsung
Scipher-QED Intellectual Property Ltd.
Sharp corporation
Siemens AG
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems Inc.
Swisscom
Tektronix
Telexis Corporation
The University of Tokyo
THOMSON multimedia
Toshiba Corporation