MPEG Industry Forum

Singapore, 3 March 2024 - At it's 6th meeting, M4IF announced that a world wide call will be made to submit patent claims in MPEG-4 Audio to an independent evaluator. This is a step that should lead to a joint licensing scheme to be set-up by holders of essential patents. While initiated by M4IF, licensing of MPEG-4 technology will be run by patent owners, completely independently from M4IF. "We are very pleased that this announcement could now be made" said Rob Koenen, President of M4IF. "It has been reported that talks are ongoing between holders of essential patents in MPEG?4 Visual, and that evaluation of MPEG-4 Systems patents is well underway. This announcement completes the picture." Schuyler Quackenbush, who headed the effort that led up to the call, added: "This is a great result. We hope that licensing MPEG-4 Audio technology can start in Autumn 2001."

M4IF released its Study on licensing models for software/downloadable MPEG-4 technology for publication. The study investigates ways to deal with licensing in a software environment, giving potential approaches that licensors and licensees may want to investigate.

M4IF further developed its interoperability test plans. The goal is to test interoperability between technology from different manufacturers. Interoperability is pursued at MPEG-4 Conformance points, which are expressed as Profiles and Levels. In its interoperability work, M4IF will seek to cooperate with industry forums that have adopted MPEG-4 technology in their specifications, thus ensuring seamless interworking between different MPEG-4 products in the market place.

Jan van der Meer of Philips Consumer Electronics in the Netherlands was appointed as Director, bringing the Board's membership to 7 people. Mr. Van der Meer's history in MPEG goes back to MPEG-1, and M4IF is very pleased to see him join the Board of Directors. He will oversee the interoperability work.

About The MPEG-4 Industry Forum
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, against of yearly fee of 2,000 US Dollars. The forum was established on May 29th 2000, as a not-for-profit organisation based in Switzerland. The M4IF carries out activities that are outside of ISO/IEC's scope, such as:

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.
Creating industrial focus around the standard - which part of the MPEG-4 toolbox to use in which market?

M4IF currently has 83 members.

See http://www.m4if.org

More information:
Rob Koenen (president of M4IF)
tel +1 (408) 855 6891
[email protected]

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