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>It's not clear that Motorola didn't offer "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" for licensing. Microsoft claims licensing would cost them $4bn/year;
by cube13 14y ago
>It's not clear that Motorola didn't offer "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" for licensing. Microsoft claims licensing would cost them $4bn/year; Motorola disputes this claim.
It's not clear why Motorola should be able to do in the first place. If Motorola's patents cover encoding and decoding of H.264, those patents should be in MPEG LA's pool. However, Motorola is not listed as licensor on the website(http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx ). Since the pool covers all the essential patents related to encoding and decoding H.264, why isn't Motorola included in the list?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- soc88 14y agoNobody is forced to join the MPEG LA, in fact their behavior is pretty much illegal. They are explicitly banned to claim, assume or declare that it is impossible to encode/decode videos without a license from them. Which is pretty much what they do.
- cube13 14y agoThat's tangential to the problem at hand. MPEG LA's entire purpose for existing is to be a one stop shop for the essential H.264 codec patents. So instead of going to MS, Apple, Samsung, Hitachi, etc. individually, you just go to MPEG LA, get a license, then go on with your life. Motorola is not on that list, and have not granted their patents. However, since they're asserting that it covers the encoding and decoding of H.264, it's questionable whether or not they can assert them against H.264 codecs. In fact, the US courts have invalidated patents that were not declared to the pool before. See dpark's post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3919324 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3919324
- soc88 14y agoThanks for rephrasing.