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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

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.

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.