2015年4月1日
By 1月时特约编辑
专题文章

新的HEVC专利池:影响是什么?

On March 24, HEVC提前, an independent licensing administrator announced a new HEVC 除了MPEG LA提供的专利池之外，它还提供了一个专利池. In this article, we'll explore exactly what that means and what the implications are.

To gather this 信息, I spoke with Mike Callahan, senior director of product marketing at 基本技术，首席技术官Shawn Carnahan Telestream皮特·莫勒来自 HEVC提前. I also spoke with several other knowledgeable industry professionals who wished to stay off the record. 我向新集团中的两家公司发出了面试请求, 杜比和特艺彩色, 但没有收到回复.

什么是HEVC提前?

HEVC提前 is an independent licensing administrator forming a new HEVC patent pool. 发言人, 皮特·莫勒, 他目前是通用电气IP Equality的董事总经理, 在HEVC提前中拥有知识产权的五家公司之一新闻稿.

在我们的谈话中，莫勒说他只是一个发言人. Though GE was obviously involved to some degree in the organization's formation, Moller indicated that HEVC提前 is transitioning to an independent entity that will be independently owned and managed.

From my perspective, GE’s backing, to whatever degree, gives HEVC提前 a lot of weight. This isn't a group of dissatisfied patent owners corralled by an aggressive hustler; it's a huge company attempting to get more for their IP than they thought they could through the MPEG LA patent pool.

谁是小组成员?

新闻稿中说, 预计最初的授权方名单将包括通用电气, 鲜艳的色彩, 杜比, 飞利浦, 和三菱电机.考虑到莫勒的存在，通用电气可能是理所当然的. 新闻稿还指出, "HEVC提前 expects to attract a critical mass of intellectual property (IP) holders, with more than 500 essential patents expected to be available for 许可证 at launch, 专利数量预计将大幅增长."

For what its worth, of the companies mentioned, 鲜艳的色彩 was the only one to issue a 新闻稿关于这个问题.

版税条款是什么?

条款没有披露。. 在我们的谈话中, Moller stated that the group hopes to announce general terms in Q2 2015 and to start offering 许可证s in Q3 2015.

新组合的形成是一个意外吗?

除非你没注意.

顺便说一下背景，当MPEG LA宣布其 HEVC池，我报告说，有多家知名公司缺席，包括AT&T, 微软, 诺基亚, 和摩托罗拉, and that "one of the biggest concerns about HEVC was that essential patent holders would opt out of the patent pool, forcing HEVC users to enter into multiple licensing agreements with multiple companies." So most companies who have 许可证d or plan to 许可证 HEVC from MPEG LA were probably expecting to hear from other owners of HEVC-related IP.

正如元素公司的卡拉汉所说, “一般说来, 在更广泛的HEVC专利中，仍有不少未知数, 许可证, 还有皇室景观. It's in keeping with the 'land-grab' mentality typical of early-phase technologies and markets."

为了更好地理解这一点，MPEG LA H.264个专利组包括4个以上,000项专利, 正如Telestream的卡纳汉所指出的那样, 还有其他公司主张H.264-related IP rights outside of the MPEG LA group, including Motorola, which I discuss below. Current participants in the MPEG LA pool own about 500 patents (a number that will grow over time as more patents are granted), 而HEVC提前表示，他们将在发布时拥有500个. 因此，尽管HEVC不会拥有与H.264 (could be more, could be less), there may still be a lot of IP owners out there in neither camp.

为什么需要另一个HEVC专利池?

一切都是为了钱(但你知道).

Let me start by stating that the formation of another pool is a good thing; it will be more efficient for HEVC 许可证es to deal with an organized group than with individual IP owners. Groups also tend to produce more 合理的 proposals than individual IP owners, 谁有时高估了他们技术的价值.

话虽如此, everyone in HEVC提前 had an opportunity to join the MPEG LA group and chose not to. The obvious motive is that they thought they could earn more with another group.

HEVC提前的条款与MPEG LA有何不同?

由于HEVC尚未披露其条款，我们只能猜测. Let's examine the terms of the MPEG LA HEVC 许可证 to get a feel for where some IP owners might feel that they left money on the table.

以下是HEVC许可证的要点:

成本是0美元.20/单位适用于所有许可的编码器和解码器
10万件以下的有最低限度的例外
每年的上限为2500万美元.
hevc编码的内容没有许可证(就像H.264和MPEG-2)

Clearly MPEG LA's 许可证 is designed to capture the maximum 收入 at the lowest possible administrative cost. 这并不是要把矛头指向MPEG LA. These were the terms agreed to by the 25+ participants in the HEVC group; MPEG LA didn’t formulate them in a vacuum. 不过，每个主要点都揭示了相当具体的盈利机会.

许可费用和最低例外

本质上, the 许可证 fee and de minmis exception ensures that multiple companies making serious coin from HEVC encoding or HEVC encoded files will never pay a dime into the MPEG LA pool. 这些包括:

Encoding companies selling encoders ranging in price from $50 to $25,000 and higher
云编码公司出售编码服务
Companies creating multiple-server encoding farms to encode their own content.

Both Elemental and Telestream recognized that encoding vendors were receiving a pretty good deal under the MPEG LA HEVC 许可证 proposal. 当然，Elemental将远远低于100,000单位的最低例外. But even if it wasn't, under the current 许可证 structure the fees they would owe would be trivial.

让我们快速粗略地估算一下. 如果你把他们2014年估计的5000万美元分开收入 by the average selling price of a hardware encoder ($25,000), you get 2,000 units. 这5000万美元包括云计算和其他收入, 当然, 所以单位估计可能很高, 但即使它不是, 2,000个单位在0美元时的收益是400美元.20 /单位.

即使版税高出10倍——2美元.00—the net from Elemental would be only $4,000, probably not worth the administrative cost involved. 为什么2美元.00? 当我从空中选出这个数字的时候, HEVC提前 (or any IP owner) has to choose a number beneath the threshold that would force the affected class to sue. 为什么?

Because patent rights granted by IP owners who participate in a standard like HEVC have to be fair, 合理的, 非歧视性的(弗兰德). 在评估什么是公平和合理的时候, a court will consider rates assessed by other technology 许可证es like MPEG LA. 这是发生了什么事 when Motorola and 微软 ended up in court to determine the 弗兰德 value of the Motorola H.微软正在使用的264项相关专利. 具体来说，法院认为MPEG LA的H.264的许可费来确定什么是公平合理的.

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