6 ms·

Nokia discloses their patents on VP8/WebM

102 points by thristian 14y ago

thristian 14y ago
A little while ago, Google reached an agreement with MPEG-LA where MPEG-LA would stop claiming that its members had patents that covered VP8, so it seemed that VP8 was patent-clean after all. However, the IETF is currently trying working on the WebRTC effort for standardizing Skype-style audio and video conferencing via web-browsers. They have already standardised the Opus audio codec for audio-conferencing, and now they're trying to find a suitable video-codec. VP8 was the obvious choice, but now Nokia (who is not a member of the MPEG-LA, and so is not covered by MPEG-LA's agreement with Google) has come forward with a list of patents they hold, which they claim cover VP8. I don't know much about these patents, I don't know whether they do or don't cover VP8, but it's big list with patent-numbers in it, which is far more concrete evidence than MPEG-LA was ever able to muster.
- ajross 14y ago
  It's sort of interesting that the list itself is semi-obfuscated, just a bunch of inline records. I count 12 "Country:US" patents. Of those, 4 have "NA" for "Grant number", which I take to mean they have not issued. That's not a strong list. I think this is good news, honestly.
  - drrotmos 14y ago
    I don't know. I took a random pick of one of the US Patents and took a look at it. Take US6735249 as an example. "Apparatus, and associated method, for forming a compressed motion vector field utilizing predictive motion coding". I'm by no means an expert in video codecs, but to me it seems at least plausible that this patent would cover parts of VP8.
    - harshreality 14y ago
      I'm not an expert on video codecs either, but that is yet another math patent. It includes a reference to an "apparatus" in the summary, and a ref to "storage means" [sic] (should be "storage medium") in one of the claims, but that claim (4) is the only one I noticed that makes any reference to any non-theoretical, non-mathematical, non-ephemeral (i.e. the vague notion of "transmitting" or "retrieving") element. If patenting math weren't bad enough, completely absurd chained claims include: 3. A method according to claim 2 further comprising the steps of: transmitting said coded information to a decoder for decoding. 4. A method according to claim 2 further comprising the steps of: storing said coded information in a storage means. 42. A video encoder according to claim 41, further comprising: means for transmitting said encoded information for the segment to a decoder for decoding. If claims 2 and 41 (base claims for 3, 4, and 42) are too weak to apply in a particular case, or are unpatentable (which should be the case since they are math claims), they cannot possibly be made stronger simply by handwaving in some mentions of storage and of transferring data. Yet that is how all of these algorithm/math patents hope to survive. Reference a computer, referencing storing something, reference transmitting something, and suddenly something that's not patentable becomes patentable. This patent racket depends on the idea that it's so uncommon to think to use a computer to perform some calculation, or implement an algorithm in a chip, or use disks or memory to store data, or use a data bus or ethernet/infiniband/rapidio to transmit anything, that adding those things (usually not even mentioning a specific type of computer, or storage, or transmission mechanism) vaults the idea into uniqueness. Supposing 3, 4, and 42 somehow survived, because they might in the strictest sense be considered to involved material things, they amount to retrieving data (from an unspecified data source), performing transformations (math) to them (using unspecified hardware), and possibly storing or transmitting the results (again, hardware unspecified). Software patents are simply a scam. They take something that's unpatentable subject matter, add generic boilerplate to it, trying to connect it with real hardware, and hope the USPTO approves it.
- meepmorp 14y ago
  > ...which is far more concrete evidence than MPEG-LA was ever able to muster. reply Able isn't the right word here; willing, or perhaps needed is more apt. MPEG-LA had no incentive to make their claims more specific. We're not really sure what the consortium could/would've brought to bear in an infringement suit.
- cromwellian 14y ago
  I find it interesting, that if they are not part of MPEG-LA, somehow these patents apply to VP8, but don't apply in any way to H264? Does that mean that most commercial MPEG-LA licensees also do separate deals with Nokia, or that by sheer coincidence, this boatload of patents manages to cover VP8 but does not intersect H264? It smells kind of funny, like there's an alternate motive besides looking for royalties.
  - othermaciej 14y ago
    MPEG-LA doesn't claim to have all possible H.264 patents in their patent pool. Nokia has an FRAND obligation for H.264, so it's obligated to license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, but it has chosen not to be part of the pool. MPEG-LA did not claim to have all possible VP8 patents either. Note that MPEG-LA is basically a group that sets up convenient one-stop licensing, there's no such thing as being a "member" per se. You can be part of any of their patent pools, or not, if you believe you have essential IP.
    - cromwellian 14y ago
      No they did not claim to have all the patents, nor do I expect Google made this assumption (there's a never ending list!), but the timing is very curious. What does Nokia really want out of this if they are not interested in licensing under any circumstances? This is not the first time Nokia did this. IIRC, they also threatened Ogg when it was being proposed as the mandatory codec for the <video> element. Certain companies that have large installed bases of H264 hardware certainly have a vested interested in seeing H264 as the mandatory WebRTC codec.
      - GHFigs 14y ago
        Has any party actually proposed h.264 being made mandatory to implement for WebRTC?
        ZeroGravitas 14y ago
        Yes, Nokia, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, Ericcson, RIM, France Telecom/Orange, Qualcomm. http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dbenham-webrtc-videomti/ http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dbenham-webrtc-videomt... IETF's royalty-free commitment isn't as strong as W3C's so unlike the HTML5 codec were they were just filibustering alternatives, they are actually arguing for H.264 to be MTI. But the VP8 camp is strong enough to at least prevent that, even if not strong enough to prevail as MTI itself. There's some overlap with the groups that didn't want Opus made MTI as well (one of them submitted a patent against it too).
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  I would assume that it's the same patents registered in multiple countries so it's mostly legal boilerplate. There appear to be twelve in the US which I'm guessing are just then repeated in other nations. Note that there's absolutely no downside for Nokia to declare irrelevant patents against an IETF spec. Some of the other big companies do it just out of habit, on the basis that it's all upside for them. See the recent Opus patent rebuttal: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/02/defending-opus/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/02/defending-opus/
- runeks 14y ago
  > However, the IETF is currently trying working on the WebRTC effort for standardizing Skype-style audio and video conferencing via web-browsers. Now I see why Nokia (with an ex-Microsoft CEO) doesn't want VP8 to succeed. Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 and is looking to protect that investment. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened at least.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
zmmmmm 14y ago
This seems to be a commendable action (even if it is forced by the standards body) to me - come forward with what patents you have publicly and then it can be resolved. Contrast to Microsoft who claims mysterious patents on Android and refuses to disclose what they are purposefully to create and aura of FUD and prevent any resolution. With these patents in the open, Google can work around them, license them or dispute their infringement directly.
- pazimzadeh 14y ago
  All patents are by definition, publicly viewable. But you may be right in that figuring out which patents are associated with which technologies can be hard when companies have thousands of them. One would think that Google would on average be better at searching through a large database of patents than any other company, though.
  - noonespecial 14y ago
    Most of the patents in question probably read more like "method to send video over a network" than technical documents. Everyone in the space has some. What they are disclosing is which ones they intend to make a nuisance over.
- fafner 14y ago
  > Unwilling to Commit to the Provisions of a), b), or c) Above. That's the evil part. It means they are unwilling to license those patents. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipr-template-09 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipr-template-09
cromwellian 14y ago
From the ietf mailing list: "The declaration says that Nokia is not prepared to license the listed patents for RFC 6386 under any terms." Deja Vu: http://boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is.html http://boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is.html Things that make you go hmmm.
0x09 14y ago
"Unwilling to Commit to the Provisions of a), b), or c) Above" refers to the following from the IETF's template for patent disclosures and licensing declarations[1] a) ___ No License Required for Implementers b) ___ Royalty-Free, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory License to All Implementers c) ___ Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory License to All Implementers with Possible Royalty/Fee [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3905 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3905
pekk 14y ago
This is what happens when a company stops having anything relevant to contribute and just becomes a bag'o'patents.
- nivla 14y ago
  >stops having anything relevant to contribute You mean like Lumia Phones, Nokia Maps, Nokia Free Music... I love their apps and hardware but I do however disagree with their stance on enforcing unnecessary patents!
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Nokia's still little more than a blip on the smartphone radar. Their alliance with Microsoft was an effort to save their smartphone division, and it's affecting other areas of their business. First they laid off the entire Qt team, now they're attacking open standards. It's like SCO all over again.
    - btilly 14y ago
      SCO worked out pretty well for Microsoft the first time. Years of distraction from a dead company, they got to pay off David Boise in return for his dropping the anti-trust case, and nobody successfully followed the money trail back to Microsoft in any way that mattered. Why wouldn't they try to do it again?
      - nitrogen 14y ago
        Why wouldn't they try to do it again? Indeed, but it still makes me wish I were born on Mars or something.
  - anoncow 14y ago
    I like their subscription music service (Many labels are not available though). But this patent troll stance makes me feel that nokia is being used to fight unnecessary rivalries.
- 14y ago
kragen 14y ago
Another example of how patents harm innovation and in particular open-source software: years of video codec innovation by Google and On2 are now being pirated by Nokia using these patent threats. Note that many of the countries where they claim to have been granted patents do not, in theory, allow software patents at all.
- mikro2nd 14y ago
  Good observation. I went back and checked the list again, and see my own country (ZA) in amongst the listed patents - a country where software patents are explicitly /forbidden/ in law... something awfully smelly about this.
  - fafner 14y ago
    There are many EU countries there as well and the EU allows no software patents either. However there are many loopholes in the system which can still lead to patents being granted if the patent is formulated differently. That's why international patent lawyers earn so much money. They rewrite the patent to fit national law. The patent system is broken and has to be removed.
- GHFigs 14y ago
  VP8 was developed as patented proprietary technology by On2, and the only innovation since Google purchased the company has been picking a container format. It might be solid gold in every other respect, but it's not a very good example of open source innovation or of patents harming innovation.
  - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
    Only if you define innovation narrowly. Would you say x264 has no "video codec innovation"? If so you can conclude that VP8 innovation stopped when the spec was frozen. (And that's not even counting VP9 which builds on the foundation of VP8, or the Hantro VP8 hardware development).
  - kragen 14y ago
buster 14y ago
Is it too far fetched to wonder if Nokia is fighting on behalf of MS? In the end Nokias CEO comes from MS, Nokia is very dependant on MS nowadays and MS has a strong interest in H264, is a member of MPEG-LA and earns money from every H264 license? All that software patent bullshit needs to stop, already, it's sickening!! It's the <video> tag discussion all over again. Why can't we have royalty-free, free-for-all codecs in an OPEN worldwide standard?! Because stupid companies like Nokia, MS or Apple are NOT acting on behalf of the users but on behalf of their own income. And don't start with "but h264 has so much better quality!" No normal person could tell the difference between a proper vp8 encoded FullHD youtube video and a h264 one, it's not like there are glaring differences!
- taligent 14y ago
  Do you honestly think Nokia, MS or Apple could care less about the tiny royalties that come from H.264 licensing ? And if they did why provide free APIs for developers ? And the reason H.264 is successful is not because of its superior quality. It's because MPEG-LA has companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Canon, Nikon which means H.264 is supported from capture to editing to publishing to viewing.
  - jahewson 14y ago
    Probably not, but they might be interested in preventing the progress of WebRTC, which could threaten Skype.
  - buster 14y ago
    Do you have a source for "tiny royalties"? How much does MPEG-LA earn in a year? A few millions per licensing company here, a few hundred thousand per video site there.. It adds up!
    - anon1385 14y ago
      Apple and Microsoft also ship a lot of products that use H.264 and thus have to pay for their use of H.264, so I don't think it is at all obvious that is it a profit centre for them. Microsoft at least have said they lose money on it, and I doubt the situation for Apple is much different: Though they have patents in the H.264 pool that MPEG LA licenses, Microsoft has said it pays MPEG LA twice as much in royalties to ship H.264-enabled products than it receives in royalty payments back. And Apple has only a single patent in the H.264 pool, so it appears its interests in H.264 and MPEG LA are not directly financial. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20038615-264.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20038615-264.html
patentlinks 14y ago
Links to US, European and Canadian patents http://mdpaste.appspot.com/p/agdtZHBhc3Rlcg0LEgVQYXN0ZRjJoxYM http://mdpaste.appspot.com/p/agdtZHBhc3Rlcg0LEgVQYXN0ZRjJoxY...
josteink 14y ago
It seems we have some very strong forces who will do everything they can do to prevent an open, standards-based and DRM-free video-protocol to become part of the internet. We should shun them absolutely in every way we can. Anyone who supports WebDRM: Boycott. Anyone who patent-trolls: Boycott.
jkn 14y ago
I wonder if Google will be able to use its own patents on VP8 to pressure Nokia into a deal. As I understand it, Nokia lost its license when it sued HTC in Germany over VP8 technology[1], since the WebM licensing terms say: If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. [2] Of course Google only gets leverage from their VP8 patents to the extent that VP8 is used... [1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg06704.html http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg06704... [2] http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/ http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/
- petermonsson 14y ago
  As long as the Qualcomm application processors don't support hardware based VP8 decoding, Nokia probably won't care. The day that mainstream application processor vendors support hardware based VP8 decoding, this will change.
rlanday 14y ago
A Nokia spokesman is quoted in this article: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-pat... as stating “Nokia believes that open and collaborative efforts for standardization are in the best interests of consumers, innovators and the industry as a whole. We are now witnessing one company attempting to force the adoption of its proprietary technology, which offers no advantages over existing, widely deployed standards such as H.264 and infringes Nokia's intellectual property. As a result, we have taken the unusual step of declaring to the Internet Engineering Task Force that we are not prepared to license any Nokia patents which may be needed to implement its RFC6386 specification for VP8, or for derivative codecs.” So their position is that since VP8 does not offer any technical or licensing advantages over H.264 (Nokia being at least one company that owns or claims to own patents on it), they’re going to use their patents to prevent Google from promoting VP8. At this point, I don’t see why any reasonable person would still want to use H.264 over VP8.
- derf_ 14y ago
  Just a reminder to those who believe that royalty-free licensing _is_ an advantage, the IETF is a completely open standards body. Anyone can join the mailing lists and contribute to the decision making. The rtcweb chairs are currently planning to call for a decision on a Mandatory To Implement video codec on the mailing list in a few weeks, after Google publishes the license terms that came out of their deal with the MPEG LA. List information: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb
- cromwellian 14y ago
  In other words, this isn't really about innovation or "theft of ip", but suppressing competition, more evidence of the abuse of the patent system. As to why a reasonable person would want to not use H.264? It's simple. Organizations like Mozilla cannot ship software with IP encumbered codecs. WebRTC doesn't say that you cannot use H.264, it allows you to negotiate the codec, this debate over what is the minimum fallback codec that everyone has to support. Given that Microsoft/Skype/Nokia have been against the IETF WebRTC proposal, you can gather for very good business reasons. A non-IP encumbered spec widely deployed would be a threat to Skype/Cisco/Nokia et al who have commercial video conferencing stuff, it would commoditize the market for video chat and make it a trivial matter. The established players only have to gain by delaying an open spec. I think even if H264 were used over VP8, there Microsoft and others would find other reasons to stop it.
cybernytrix 14y ago
Google just killed Reader. How long before it will kill VP8?
- andybak 14y ago
  Oh this is just getting silly now. "How long before it will kills x?" is becoming the new "What ever happened to 'Don't Be Evil'?". A lazy incantation trotted out by people who haven't really thought out whether it applies to the situation under discussion in any sensible way.

102 points by thristian 14y ago

A little while ago, Google reached an agreement with MPEG-LA where MPEG-LA would stop claiming that its members had patents that covered VP8, so it seemed that VP8 was patent-clean after all. However, the IETF is currently trying working on the WebRTC effort for standardizing Skype-style audio and video conferencing via web-browsers. They have already standardised the Opus audio codec for audio-conferencing, and now they're trying to find a suitable video-codec. VP8 was the obvious choice, but now Nokia (who is not a member of the MPEG-LA, and so is not covered by MPEG-LA's agreement with Google) has come forward with a list of patents they hold, which they claim cover VP8. I don't know much about these patents, I don't know whether they do or don't cover VP8, but it's big list with patent-numbers in it, which is far more concrete evidence than MPEG-LA was ever able to muster.

ajross 14y ago
It's sort of interesting that the list itself is semi-obfuscated, just a bunch of inline records. I count 12 "Country:US" patents. Of those, 4 have "NA" for "Grant number", which I take to mean they have not issued. That's not a strong list. I think this is good news, honestly.
- drrotmos 14y ago
  I don't know. I took a random pick of one of the US Patents and took a look at it. Take US6735249 as an example. "Apparatus, and associated method, for forming a compressed motion vector field utilizing predictive motion coding". I'm by no means an expert in video codecs, but to me it seems at least plausible that this patent would cover parts of VP8.
  - harshreality 14y ago
    I'm not an expert on video codecs either, but that is yet another math patent. It includes a reference to an "apparatus" in the summary, and a ref to "storage means" [sic] (should be "storage medium") in one of the claims, but that claim (4) is the only one I noticed that makes any reference to any non-theoretical, non-mathematical, non-ephemeral (i.e. the vague notion of "transmitting" or "retrieving") element. If patenting math weren't bad enough, completely absurd chained claims include: 3. A method according to claim 2 further comprising the steps of: transmitting said coded information to a decoder for decoding. 4. A method according to claim 2 further comprising the steps of: storing said coded information in a storage means. 42. A video encoder according to claim 41, further comprising: means for transmitting said encoded information for the segment to a decoder for decoding. If claims 2 and 41 (base claims for 3, 4, and 42) are too weak to apply in a particular case, or are unpatentable (which should be the case since they are math claims), they cannot possibly be made stronger simply by handwaving in some mentions of storage and of transferring data. Yet that is how all of these algorithm/math patents hope to survive. Reference a computer, referencing storing something, reference transmitting something, and suddenly something that's not patentable becomes patentable. This patent racket depends on the idea that it's so uncommon to think to use a computer to perform some calculation, or implement an algorithm in a chip, or use disks or memory to store data, or use a data bus or ethernet/infiniband/rapidio to transmit anything, that adding those things (usually not even mentioning a specific type of computer, or storage, or transmission mechanism) vaults the idea into uniqueness. Supposing 3, 4, and 42 somehow survived, because they might in the strictest sense be considered to involved material things, they amount to retrieving data (from an unspecified data source), performing transformations (math) to them (using unspecified hardware), and possibly storing or transmitting the results (again, hardware unspecified). Software patents are simply a scam. They take something that's unpatentable subject matter, add generic boilerplate to it, trying to connect it with real hardware, and hope the USPTO approves it.
meepmorp 14y ago
> ...which is far more concrete evidence than MPEG-LA was ever able to muster. reply Able isn't the right word here; willing, or perhaps needed is more apt. MPEG-LA had no incentive to make their claims more specific. We're not really sure what the consortium could/would've brought to bear in an infringement suit.
cromwellian 14y ago
I find it interesting, that if they are not part of MPEG-LA, somehow these patents apply to VP8, but don't apply in any way to H264? Does that mean that most commercial MPEG-LA licensees also do separate deals with Nokia, or that by sheer coincidence, this boatload of patents manages to cover VP8 but does not intersect H264? It smells kind of funny, like there's an alternate motive besides looking for royalties.
- othermaciej 14y ago
  MPEG-LA doesn't claim to have all possible H.264 patents in their patent pool. Nokia has an FRAND obligation for H.264, so it's obligated to license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, but it has chosen not to be part of the pool. MPEG-LA did not claim to have all possible VP8 patents either. Note that MPEG-LA is basically a group that sets up convenient one-stop licensing, there's no such thing as being a "member" per se. You can be part of any of their patent pools, or not, if you believe you have essential IP.
  - cromwellian 14y ago
    No they did not claim to have all the patents, nor do I expect Google made this assumption (there's a never ending list!), but the timing is very curious. What does Nokia really want out of this if they are not interested in licensing under any circumstances? This is not the first time Nokia did this. IIRC, they also threatened Ogg when it was being proposed as the mandatory codec for the <video> element. Certain companies that have large installed bases of H264 hardware certainly have a vested interested in seeing H264 as the mandatory WebRTC codec.
    - GHFigs 14y ago
      Has any party actually proposed h.264 being made mandatory to implement for WebRTC?
      - ZeroGravitas 14y ago
        Yes, Nokia, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, Ericcson, RIM, France Telecom/Orange, Qualcomm. http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dbenham-webrtc-videomti/ http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-dbenham-webrtc-videomt... IETF's royalty-free commitment isn't as strong as W3C's so unlike the HTML5 codec were they were just filibustering alternatives, they are actually arguing for H.264 to be MTI. But the VP8 camp is strong enough to at least prevent that, even if not strong enough to prevail as MTI itself. There's some overlap with the groups that didn't want Opus made MTI as well (one of them submitted a patent against it too).
ZeroGravitas 14y ago
I would assume that it's the same patents registered in multiple countries so it's mostly legal boilerplate. There appear to be twelve in the US which I'm guessing are just then repeated in other nations. Note that there's absolutely no downside for Nokia to declare irrelevant patents against an IETF spec. Some of the other big companies do it just out of habit, on the basis that it's all upside for them. See the recent Opus patent rebuttal: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/02/defending-opus/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/02/defending-opus/
runeks 14y ago
> However, the IETF is currently trying working on the WebRTC effort for standardizing Skype-style audio and video conferencing via web-browsers. Now I see why Nokia (with an ex-Microsoft CEO) doesn't want VP8 to succeed. Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 and is looking to protect that investment. Wouldn't be the first time that had happened at least.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

zmmmmm 14y ago

This seems to be a commendable action (even if it is forced by the standards body) to me - come forward with what patents you have publicly and then it can be resolved. Contrast to Microsoft who claims mysterious patents on Android and refuses to disclose what they are purposefully to create and aura of FUD and prevent any resolution. With these patents in the open, Google can work around them, license them or dispute their infringement directly.

pazimzadeh 14y ago
All patents are by definition, publicly viewable. But you may be right in that figuring out which patents are associated with which technologies can be hard when companies have thousands of them. One would think that Google would on average be better at searching through a large database of patents than any other company, though.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  Most of the patents in question probably read more like "method to send video over a network" than technical documents. Everyone in the space has some. What they are disclosing is which ones they intend to make a nuisance over.
fafner 14y ago
> Unwilling to Commit to the Provisions of a), b), or c) Above. That's the evil part. It means they are unwilling to license those patents. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipr-template-09 https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipr-template-09

cromwellian 14y ago

From the ietf mailing list: "The declaration says that Nokia is not prepared to license the listed patents for RFC 6386 under any terms." Deja Vu: http://boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is.html http://boingboing.net/2007/12/09/nokia-to-w3c-ogg-is.html Things that make you go hmmm.

0x09 14y ago

"Unwilling to Commit to the Provisions of a), b), or c) Above" refers to the following from the IETF's template for patent disclosures and licensing declarations[1] a) ___ No License Required for Implementers b) ___ Royalty-Free, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory License to All Implementers c) ___ Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory License to All Implementers with Possible Royalty/Fee [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3905 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3905

pekk 14y ago

This is what happens when a company stops having anything relevant to contribute and just becomes a bag'o'patents.

nivla 14y ago
>stops having anything relevant to contribute You mean like Lumia Phones, Nokia Maps, Nokia Free Music... I love their apps and hardware but I do however disagree with their stance on enforcing unnecessary patents!
- nitrogen 14y ago
  Nokia's still little more than a blip on the smartphone radar. Their alliance with Microsoft was an effort to save their smartphone division, and it's affecting other areas of their business. First they laid off the entire Qt team, now they're attacking open standards. It's like SCO all over again.
  - btilly 14y ago
    SCO worked out pretty well for Microsoft the first time. Years of distraction from a dead company, they got to pay off David Boise in return for his dropping the anti-trust case, and nobody successfully followed the money trail back to Microsoft in any way that mattered. Why wouldn't they try to do it again?
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      Why wouldn't they try to do it again? Indeed, but it still makes me wish I were born on Mars or something.
- anoncow 14y ago
  I like their subscription music service (Many labels are not available though). But this patent troll stance makes me feel that nokia is being used to fight unnecessary rivalries.
14y ago

kragen 14y ago

Another example of how patents harm innovation and in particular open-source software: years of video codec innovation by Google and On2 are now being pirated by Nokia using these patent threats. Note that many of the countries where they claim to have been granted patents do not, in theory, allow software patents at all.

mikro2nd 14y ago
Good observation. I went back and checked the list again, and see my own country (ZA) in amongst the listed patents - a country where software patents are explicitly /forbidden/ in law... something awfully smelly about this.
- fafner 14y ago
  There are many EU countries there as well and the EU allows no software patents either. However there are many loopholes in the system which can still lead to patents being granted if the patent is formulated differently. That's why international patent lawyers earn so much money. They rewrite the patent to fit national law. The patent system is broken and has to be removed.
GHFigs 14y ago
VP8 was developed as patented proprietary technology by On2, and the only innovation since Google purchased the company has been picking a container format. It might be solid gold in every other respect, but it's not a very good example of open source innovation or of patents harming innovation.
- ZeroGravitas 14y ago
  Only if you define innovation narrowly. Would you say x264 has no "video codec innovation"? If so you can conclude that VP8 innovation stopped when the spec was frozen. (And that's not even counting VP9 which builds on the foundation of VP8, or the Hantro VP8 hardware development).
- kragen 14y ago

buster 14y ago

Is it too far fetched to wonder if Nokia is fighting on behalf of MS? In the end Nokias CEO comes from MS, Nokia is very dependant on MS nowadays and MS has a strong interest in H264, is a member of MPEG-LA and earns money from every H264 license? All that software patent bullshit needs to stop, already, it's sickening!! It's the <video> tag discussion all over again. Why can't we have royalty-free, free-for-all codecs in an OPEN worldwide standard?! Because stupid companies like Nokia, MS or Apple are NOT acting on behalf of the users but on behalf of their own income. And don't start with "but h264 has so much better quality!" No normal person could tell the difference between a proper vp8 encoded FullHD youtube video and a h264 one, it's not like there are glaring differences!

taligent 14y ago
Do you honestly think Nokia, MS or Apple could care less about the tiny royalties that come from H.264 licensing ? And if they did why provide free APIs for developers ? And the reason H.264 is successful is not because of its superior quality. It's because MPEG-LA has companies like Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Canon, Nikon which means H.264 is supported from capture to editing to publishing to viewing.
- jahewson 14y ago
  Probably not, but they might be interested in preventing the progress of WebRTC, which could threaten Skype.
- buster 14y ago
  Do you have a source for "tiny royalties"? How much does MPEG-LA earn in a year? A few millions per licensing company here, a few hundred thousand per video site there.. It adds up!
  - anon1385 14y ago
    Apple and Microsoft also ship a lot of products that use H.264 and thus have to pay for their use of H.264, so I don't think it is at all obvious that is it a profit centre for them. Microsoft at least have said they lose money on it, and I doubt the situation for Apple is much different: Though they have patents in the H.264 pool that MPEG LA licenses, Microsoft has said it pays MPEG LA twice as much in royalties to ship H.264-enabled products than it receives in royalty payments back. And Apple has only a single patent in the H.264 pool, so it appears its interests in H.264 and MPEG LA are not directly financial. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20038615-264.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20038615-264.html

patentlinks 14y ago

Links to US, European and Canadian patents http://mdpaste.appspot.com/p/agdtZHBhc3Rlcg0LEgVQYXN0ZRjJoxYM http://mdpaste.appspot.com/p/agdtZHBhc3Rlcg0LEgVQYXN0ZRjJoxY...

josteink 14y ago

It seems we have some very strong forces who will do everything they can do to prevent an open, standards-based and DRM-free video-protocol to become part of the internet. We should shun them absolutely in every way we can. Anyone who supports WebDRM: Boycott. Anyone who patent-trolls: Boycott.

jkn 14y ago

I wonder if Google will be able to use its own patents on VP8 to pressure Nokia into a deal. As I understand it, Nokia lost its license when it sued HTC in Germany over VP8 technology[1], since the WebM licensing terms say: If you or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that this implementation of VP8 or any code incorporated within this implementation of VP8 constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any patent rights granted to you under this License for this implementation of VP8 shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. [2] Of course Google only gets leverage from their VP8 patents to the extent that VP8 is used... [1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg06704.html http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg06704... [2] http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/ http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/

petermonsson 14y ago
As long as the Qualcomm application processors don't support hardware based VP8 decoding, Nokia probably won't care. The day that mainstream application processor vendors support hardware based VP8 decoding, this will change.

rlanday 14y ago

A Nokia spokesman is quoted in this article: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-patent.html http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/nokia-comments-on-vp8-pat... as stating “Nokia believes that open and collaborative efforts for standardization are in the best interests of consumers, innovators and the industry as a whole. We are now witnessing one company attempting to force the adoption of its proprietary technology, which offers no advantages over existing, widely deployed standards such as H.264 and infringes Nokia's intellectual property. As a result, we have taken the unusual step of declaring to the Internet Engineering Task Force that we are not prepared to license any Nokia patents which may be needed to implement its RFC6386 specification for VP8, or for derivative codecs.” So their position is that since VP8 does not offer any technical or licensing advantages over H.264 (Nokia being at least one company that owns or claims to own patents on it), they’re going to use their patents to prevent Google from promoting VP8. At this point, I don’t see why any reasonable person would still want to use H.264 over VP8.

derf_ 14y ago
Just a reminder to those who believe that royalty-free licensing _is_ an advantage, the IETF is a completely open standards body. Anyone can join the mailing lists and contribute to the decision making. The rtcweb chairs are currently planning to call for a decision on a Mandatory To Implement video codec on the mailing list in a few weeks, after Google publishes the license terms that came out of their deal with the MPEG LA. List information: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb
cromwellian 14y ago
In other words, this isn't really about innovation or "theft of ip", but suppressing competition, more evidence of the abuse of the patent system. As to why a reasonable person would want to not use H.264? It's simple. Organizations like Mozilla cannot ship software with IP encumbered codecs. WebRTC doesn't say that you cannot use H.264, it allows you to negotiate the codec, this debate over what is the minimum fallback codec that everyone has to support. Given that Microsoft/Skype/Nokia have been against the IETF WebRTC proposal, you can gather for very good business reasons. A non-IP encumbered spec widely deployed would be a threat to Skype/Cisco/Nokia et al who have commercial video conferencing stuff, it would commoditize the market for video chat and make it a trivial matter. The established players only have to gain by delaying an open spec. I think even if H264 were used over VP8, there Microsoft and others would find other reasons to stop it.

cybernytrix 14y ago

Google just killed Reader. How long before it will kill VP8?

andybak 14y ago
Oh this is just getting silly now. "How long before it will kills x?" is becoming the new "What ever happened to 'Don't Be Evil'?". A lazy incantation trotted out by people who haven't really thought out whether it applies to the situation under discussion in any sensible way.