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"For a $1,000 laptop, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay a royalty of $22.50 for its 50 patents on the video standard, called H.264." I find this doubtfu
by DarkShikari 15y ago
"For a $1,000 laptop, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay a royalty of $22.50 for its 50 patents on the video standard, called H.264."
I find this doubtful; the licensing terms for H.264 put the per-unit hardware costs at around 10-20 cents depending on volume.
I'm guessing the author misunderstands what's going here: the patents most likely cover related things, but not H.264 itself, or they're not "essential patents" as per the spec.
It might also be possible that Microsoft doesn't license from the MPEG-LA, and rather licenses individual patents separately. An example of a company that claims to do this is Real, whose RealVideo is a blatant H.264 ripoff -- so they claim they license the relevant patents individually instead of the whole package.
The alternative is that Motorola has done something that would probably get them permanently kicked out of all ITU standards bodies forever. Taking part in a standards body and then breaking the agreements signed during said process is not merely illegal, but probably grounds for every other company involved beating you to death with sharp sticks.
- othermaciej 15y agoThat last alternative appears to be what Motorola is doing. I'm pretty sure Microsoft's executives are not confused on this point.
- fpgeek 15y agoYou're missing a subtle distinction. Motorola promised to license these patents on FRAND terms, but they are not part of the MPEG-LA or any other patent pool with respect to these patents (something which, AFAIK, is not required by any FRAND commitment). From what I've heard, Motorola's terms are non-discriminatory - they ask for the same schedule from everyone. So then the question turns on whether Motorola's terms are "fair" and "reasonable". On that point, I suspect the debate will be endless - especially once you include the issue of "fair" and "reasonable" treatment of past infringement (both of which Microsoft and Apple have to contend with).
- othermaciej 15y agoIt's not clear that they are asking the same royalty schedule of everyone for their FRAND patents. We only know what they said the cap would be, and what they asked of a few specific companies in some cases. And that cap seems to be out of line with industry norms for what is "reasonable". We also know that Motorola has taken at least one action that could be taken as discriminatory. Specifically they apparently licensed some 3G-related patents to Qualcomm including full rights for Qualcomm's customers to use those patents, then claimed to have terminated those patent rights with respect to Apple as a third-party beneficiary: <http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/apples-us-antisuit-lawsuit-against.html> http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/apples-us-antisuit-l....