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Is it just me or by saying "Hey, if you have a patent that VP8 infringes, let's talk" MPEG LA implicitly admits that they do not currently own or are aware of s

Is it just me or by saying "Hey, if you have a patent that VP8 infringes, let's talk" MPEG LA implicitly admits that they do not currently own or are aware of such patents? Either way, MPEG LA just unlocked "patent troll wannabe" achievement. Like we needed another example showing how patents are limiting progress and innovation by creating government-sponsored rent seeking entities pocketing large sums of money at the expense of everyone else.

wmf 16y ago
MPEG LA does not own any patents; they're just a broker. This is the same process they have used for all previous patent pools they have built; MPEG LA puts the burden of finding relevant patents on the patent owners because the owners have the incentive to get patents included in the pool.
- DougBTX 16y ago
  I don't think that's the point. The idea of patents is to make trade secrets public for the common good. If the patents were useful, the VP8 guys would be able to produce a list of helpful patents. Since this is a call for unknown patents, including patents unknown to the VP8 implementors, patents have failed to encourage innovation in this case.
  - jacobolus 16y ago
    The information in patents isn’t exclusively described in those patents themselves. I imagine a lot of the ideas become known through books, papers, open implementations of patent-encumbered codecs, etc. There was a blog post several months ago that made it sound like VP8 may have lifted several ideas directly from H.264. Furthermore, how could a patent system possibly work at all if merely claiming that you hadn’t examined the patent in question was enough to avoid liability for infringing it? Proving definitively that you’d read something before making your own invention seems like it would be an impossibly high burden for patent owners.
po 16y ago
I think being the group who is asking all submarines to surface is very different than being the submarine captain. I agree patents suck but it's an unavoidable reality of the current US patent system. If the patent exists, it exists. Sticking your head in the sand wont help you and leaving it as an unknown only helps Google. I think you can make the case that this is the role that Google should have been playing.

wmf 16y ago

MPEG LA does not own any patents; they're just a broker. This is the same process they have used for all previous patent pools they have built; MPEG LA puts the burden of finding relevant patents on the patent owners because the owners have the incentive to get patents included in the pool.

DougBTX 16y ago
I don't think that's the point. The idea of patents is to make trade secrets public for the common good. If the patents were useful, the VP8 guys would be able to produce a list of helpful patents. Since this is a call for unknown patents, including patents unknown to the VP8 implementors, patents have failed to encourage innovation in this case.
- jacobolus 16y ago
  The information in patents isn’t exclusively described in those patents themselves. I imagine a lot of the ideas become known through books, papers, open implementations of patent-encumbered codecs, etc. There was a blog post several months ago that made it sound like VP8 may have lifted several ideas directly from H.264. Furthermore, how could a patent system possibly work at all if merely claiming that you hadn’t examined the patent in question was enough to avoid liability for infringing it? Proving definitively that you’d read something before making your own invention seems like it would be an impossibly high burden for patent owners.

po 16y ago

I think being the group who is asking all submarines to surface is very different than being the submarine captain. I agree patents suck but it's an unavoidable reality of the current US patent system. If the patent exists, it exists. Sticking your head in the sand wont help you and leaving it as an unknown only helps Google. I think you can make the case that this is the role that Google should have been playing.