HEVC肥皂剧:跟踪玩家和成本

If you write soap operas or reality TV programs for a living, you should check out the activities of the HEVC IP owners for inspiration. 自HEVC成立以来, 我们有了两个新泳池, 分手(来自HEVC Advance的彩色照片), 现在一个专利拥有者, 三星, that joined the HEVC Advance pool while still a member of MPEG LA. 除去海滩和尸体，还有 幸存者 对HEVC的知识产权所有者没有任何影响.

让我们从三星开始. 4月5日, HEVC Advance announced that “三星 has become both a Licensor and Licensee of the HEVC Advance HEVC/H.265许可计划. 作为许可方, 三星 will make its essential patents available through the HEVC Advance patent pool, which provides a transparent and efficient licensing program for HEVC/H.265项重要专利.”

There’s just one problem: 三星 was and continues to be a member of the MPEG LA pool. 根据 someone familiar with the terms of MPEG LA’s HEVC License, “an HEVC Licensor’s sublicense grant to MPEG LA is nonexclusive. While an HEVC Licensor may not voluntarily terminate MPEG LA’s HEVC program as Licensor or Licensee before January 1, 2020 (and any MPEG LA Licensees as of such date would continue to be covered under the terminating Licensor’s patents in any case), nothing precludes a Licensor from licensing its HEVC essential patents bilaterally or through other means. 不管, royalties payable by Licensees under MPEG LA’s HEVC License are not affected; they are the same whether one or more patents is used. And in fact, 三星 continues as both Licensor and Licensee to MPEG LA’s HEVC program.”

乍一看, this would seem to mean that you’d be paying for the 三星 portfolio twice, 但事实并非如此. IP-Watchdog网站称, 一个被称为“预净额”的原则决定了这一点, “in cases where licensees hold pre-existing patent licenses with patent pool licensors, pre-netting subtracts what would be due the licensors when calculating royalty payments. This step ensures that licensees pay only for what they use and encourages broader participation in the pool.”

如果你先从MPEG LA获得许可, 你应该有权从HEVC Advance预扣净额, 反之亦然. 据我估计, 三星大约有1个,超过3个的有150个,MPEG LA网站上列出的300项专利, 显然是一个很大的数字. 在加入三星专利之前, HEVC Advance拥有951项专利, so 三星 will represent a substantial number there as well. 因此，预净额计算将显著节省成本, though it will be interesting to learn if this process goes as smoothly as it sounds.

The other news is the formation of a patent pool by Velos Media, representing “the entire portfolio of HEVC standard-essential patents from Ericsson, 松下, Qualcomm, 锋利的, 和索尼.“虽然特许权使用费价格尚未确定, Velos网站上写道, “他们之间, these companies represent more adopted contributions to the HEVC standard than any other individual company or joint licensing program.” If Velos’ IP owners really believe their own valuation statements, then HEVC licensees could be looking at another $40 million royalty cap, 如果有帽子的话, and those publishing HEVC content could face a new set of fears about potential royalties. That’s on top of the $60 million+ already in place, plus the $9.超过7500万人在为H买单.264. All this is before any royalty imposed by Technicolor, which also has not published its rates. While the Velos group appears to incorporate the last of the HEVC IP holdouts (which is a good thing), HEVC的总成本可能超过1亿美元/年. 根据专利律师大卫·W. 长, these IP owners maybe be able to claim royalties for up to 6 years prior to the date a lawsuit is filed.

与此同时, 开放媒体联盟(Alliance for Open Media)的AV1似乎正在蓬勃发展, fresh off Bitmovin’s live AV1 encoding/decoding demonstration at NAB. Given how hard HEVC IP owners are working to make their technology commercially unpalatable, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bitmovin had the most crowded booth in the show.

[本文发表于2017年6月号。 流媒体杂志 就像HEVC的肥皂剧一样."]