Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents
from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept
Video streaming is a key part of today's Internet world. According to research from Sandvine, it represents 60.6% of total downstream volume worldwide. The centrality of video to the Internet experience makes video codecs one of the hottest technologies. The most popular format today is H.264, used by 91% of video developers. But H.264 is getting long in the tooth -- its history goes back two decades. An upgrade is long overdue. There's a successor, H.265, also known as High Efficiency Video Coding, or HEVC. However, the use of H.265 has been held back by patent licensing issues. As Wikipedia explains in painful detail, there are two main patent pools demanding payment from companies that use HEVC in their devices. For one of the pools, the patent list is 164 pages long. Partly in response to this licensing mess, and HEVC's high per-device cost, the Alliance for Open Media was formed in September 2015:
Seven leading Internet companies today announced formation of the Alliance for Open Media -- an open-source project that will develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest. The Alliance's founding members are Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix.
In contrast to the proprietary and expensive H.265, the new video standard, called AOMedia Video 1 (AV1), is open source and royalty-free. Those features, and the backing of many of the top Internet companies, would seem to make it an obvious choice for manufacturers to build into their devices, leading to better-quality video streaming for end users at no extra cost.
Life is never that simple. Back in March last year, Sisvel announced a "patent licensing program" for AV1. Sisvel is an Italian company that began as a manufacturer of white goods, particularly refrigerators, and has morphed into a group that "identifies, evaluates and maximizes the value of IP assets for its partners around the world". The AOMedia group wrote in response:
AOMedia is aware of the recent third-party announcement attempting to launch a joint patent licensing program for AV1. AOMedia was founded to leave behind the very environment that the announcement endorses -- one whose high patent royalty requirements and licensing uncertainty limit the potential of free and open online video technology. By settling patent licensing terms up front with the royalty-free AOMedia Patent License 1.0, AOMedia is confident that AV1 overcomes these challenges to help usher in the next generation of video-oriented experiences.
But refrigerator companies don't give up that easily. Sisvel has just announced that more companies have added patents to its pool. There are currently 1,050 patents that Sisvel says must be licensed, but in due course it expects that number will rise to around 2,000. The fact that people can claim that there are 2,000 separate patents involved in a video encoding format is an indication of how far the patenting madness has gone. The sheer number claimed for a single technology is an indication of how trivial most of them must be -- and thus by definition undeserving of monopoly protection.
According to an article on c|net, Sisvel is "willing to pursue companies that don't pay its AV1 licensing fees". This probably means we are in for another few years of utterly pointless legal battles over who "owns" certain ideas. That's bound to cast a chill over this whole area, and to negate some of the benefits that would otherwise flow from an open source, royalty-free video standard. Companies will waste money paying lawyers, and end users will miss out on exciting applications of the technology. And all "because patents".
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: appliances, av1, h.265, patent trolls, patents, refrigerators, software patents, streaming video
Companies: alliance for open media, amazon, cisco, google, intel, microsoft, mozilla, netflix
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
I definitely think this refrigerator company
is going to chill the use of this new system
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If AOMedia developed AV1, opened the source and gave it a royalty-free license how do any of these patents have anything at all to do with it? Did they infringe these patents in the development of AV1?
Certainly any current user of AV1 could switch to a different codec, H.264 for example, and owe these shitweasels nothing. They used AV1 in good faith (it's royalty-free after all) and should owe nothing for past use of the codec.
I dearly hope this goes to trial quickly, every single one of those patents is not only ruled irrelevant to AV1 but declared invalid and Sisvel is left on the hook for everyone else's legal fees.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Too bad literal corporate death isn't real. I would enjoy paying towards the contract killing of that predatory company.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Of course the real tragedy here is that we as a society can't do the most efficient thing to solve shit like this. Immediately find the assholes behind the patent trolling effort and murder every single one of them along with burning down everything they own. That way no one would even think to try this bullshit again. Perhaps as a society we should reconsider the definition of enemies of our nation to include evil companies like this ones and bomb them back to the stone age... Or just take away their patents... Crazy thing is that we are far more likely to do the first two than we will ever be to taking away patents that are abused in this manner.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
It is: Have a court or registration office rip up their corporate charter and declare it null and void.
Alternatively, convict it of a crime and set the penalty to a non-trivial percentage of it's global gross.
Of course remedies exist, but the government will never actually use them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Eh, maybe. One of the reasons that CEOs get paid so much is they are the embodiment of the corporation. It's difficult to put a corporation in jail, but the CEO is the one ultimately liable if someone needs to end up in a cell.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
" the CEO is the one ultimately liable"
LOL - good one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
It's difficult to put a corporation in jail, but the CEO is the one ultimately liable if someone needs to end up in a cell.
Little late for making the funniest of the week list but damn if you didn't make a valiant effort with that line.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The best part of the joke is that it's true -- that's WHY they get paid so much, especially in companies where they're a figurehead. Figurehead, scapegoat, whatever.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It's companies rushing to file patents for even the most trivial ideas in the broadest terms they can get past patent examiners. For example, back in 2002 a company called LSI managed to patent what was basically a multiply linked list, a fundamental data structure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
It is amazing how stupid some patents are, I had forgot about that one.
TD did a story:
Why Real Programmers Don't Take The USPTO Seriously: Doubly-Linked List Patented
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"If AOMedia developed AV1, opened the source and gave it a royalty-free license how do any of these patents have anything at all to do with it?"
Odds are, they don't. Any patent troll with enough money to start the process of a patent suit can easily tie up any other entity in court for a long, long time, causing the other party to spend huge amounts of legal resources extricating themselves. The only defense against this, as smartphone manufacturers noticed long ago, is to spend massive amounts of money obtaining obsolete patent portfolios to serve as ammunition in countersuits - like Google did when they burned 4 billion US dollar to give Android a fighting chance.
If you want to develop or invent anything likely to become lucrative then you need, as minimum requirement, the ability to tell any unscrupulous con man this; "If you try to extort me into paying protection money or face a pointless lawsuit, I'll sue you right back and make you waste just as much money defending yourself".
"For the progress of science and the arts" indeed. Welcome to the world of Imaginary...eh, Intellectual Property law where you only get to invent stuff which isn't actually useful unless you're rich from the start.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Which doesn't work against the patent trolls who do this, because they don't have any actual products that can be attacked in that way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Their patents can be attacked that way. If you have a patent that, if you squint while standing on one foot on a Tuesday with a date of 1970 and are using it to extort money from me, and have successfully used it to extort money from a dozen other people...you have a real problem if I have a patent that seems to cover the same thing but which has a date of 1968.
Not only can you lose your lucrative patent, but you can end up owing me all the money you made in the past from suing those dozen other people.
Defending against what the patent troll says it does (given how vaguely most patents are worded) usually costs ten to a hundred times more than it costs the plaintiff to sue you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That cannot be said enough. We've had presidents asking who would be the next Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Who would be the next multi-millionaire born out of a garage? Yet every single time they overlook the fact that under no circumstance could such a thing happen in the current political / legal environment.
Even if they intentionally go out of their way to avoid patents, as has been done with AV1, there will still be lawsuits. It's never been about actual invention for the accuser. It's always been akin to a corporate SLAP suit. They want protection money, and they will tie you up in court for years to either bleed you dry or make you spend so much on defense that you can't do anything else and / or your competition can get a leg up on you in the market. Either way your product and profits suffer.
Keep in mind, that's assuming you have the resources to burn in the first place. If you are an actual garage inventor, with little in the way of capital to protect your inventions from such parasites, you'd be crazy to create and sell your work in the US. In that case, the parasites will happily bleed you dry until you've lost everything and they can collect the rights to your work for pennies on the dollar if that. Then in a kick the dead horse move, your work will never see the light of day much less a production line, unless it can be used as additional fodder for yet another lawsuit. Which as an actual inventor, is soul crushing.
No-one wants to see someone else profit off of their work unjustifiably, but it's a special pain that is felt when you see all of that hard work that you put in be degraded to nothing more than a fleeting mention on a lawsuit against another actual inventor. That, takes the will to create right out of a person. Much like how hard times makes a potential parent want to avoid conceiving children until circumstances improve.
Imaginary Property, you were right the first time, is nothing more than a profiteering / protection racket. Meant to hold the means of invention in chains away from the public. All so some corporation doesn't have to do Research and Development itself, while also ensuring that no-one else who is willing to do it will rise to challenge their market share. The parasites are just there because it's a free meal. The real beasts are the defendants in these cases who have the resources to repeatedly come out on top.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You evidently don't understand how patents work. Developed everything yourself isn't a defense to infringement of patents you've never seen. Probably most of those patents are bogus "do it on a computer"-type stuff or obvious tweaks to existing things. But it can still cost upwards of $100,000 to invalidate each.
Luckily, there's an alliance of very large companies that has enough money to fight back. Sisvel won't last long afterward, if courts make them pay the legal fees. This is the NewEgg strategy and it's been effective.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Yeah, I'm going to go with each of those (except maybe Mozilla) have much more money than Sisvel. That's to say nothing of patents able to be wielded as weapons.
Amazon: 12,000
Cisco: 15,000
Google: 21,000
Intel: 42,000
Microsoft: 43,000
Mozilla: 6
Netflix: 205 (okay these last two are a little weak here)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
You evidently suffer from a diminished capacity for reading comprehension. The very next sentence to that which you quoted was as follows:
We all understand how patents work. The questions is in regard to identifying how these patents are at all related to AV1, a codec developed independently.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Why do you mention "developed independently"? That has nothing to do with whether it's infringing. We know the Alliance for Open Media avoided all (non-free) patented techniques they were aware of. Which means, in all likelyhood, that it does something covered by one of several vague and overbroad patents, like using a computer to encode a video. Because if this fridge company had a patent that was obviously infringed, they'd have showed it to us.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The problem with the patent system is...
That it's never obvious what a patent actually covers and there are a huge number of patents that can readily be reinterpreted to cover an idea never specifically mentioned. The U.S. Patent Office has been incompetent for decades, regularly allowing patents on the obvious, on mathematical tautologies, and on ideas that are total nonsense. It is almost impossible to write a computer program that doesn't trample on someone's copyright or patent, but there's no way the programmer can find that out. I learned this long ago, when I wrote a program for a character-based display. To identify the cursor position, the program logic applied an exclusive OR (XOR) to the bits under the cursor. XOR simply reverses all the bits, which results in highlighting the character on a screen; another XOR reverses the operation. This is a property of the definition of XOR, which has been part of basic logic "forever." However, there's a patent on using it to flip the bits to make a cursor. Huh? Worse, it's a hardware patent, even though the implementation is in software.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The problem with the patent system is...
I am pretty sure if there ever was a valid patent that covered that, it has long expired.
Any non-expired patent (now) should have plenty of prior art to get it revoked.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: The problem with the patent system is...
"I am pretty sure if there ever was a valid patent that covered that, it has long expired."
In practice, no patent ever "expires". If it was useful enough to be used it becomes the basis for another patent - and this is a problem because it means numerous hardware and software developers have to use obsolete standards out of fear.
Like, for example, a media encoding algorithm over 20 years old which has remained in use well past utter obsolescence because the logical successor is "owned" by corporations which are just waiting to drag anyone encoding a media file into court to extort licensing money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The problem with the patent system is...
But if the patent only covers hardware, then figuring out how to do it in software is a completely separate thing in patent law. The only way the hardware patent could be ruled to apply to software is if the judge was corrupt or the judge had no idea that there was a difference between the two (or both).
Saying they're the same would mean that a patent on a horse-drawn wagon steering system would invalidate one on a modern car's computer-controlled steering system, because both are used to make the wheels turn when you move the steering control, just in different ways.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Patent List
Until Sisvel publishes a list of patents, this will remain just a nuisence threat. And the C-Net peice noted that Sisvel has refused to release that list. Hmmmm.. something smells...bad.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patent List
Except Microsoft has done the same thing and gotten away with it. I'm sure other companies have as well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Patent List
The ground has changed since Microsoft last got away with it. While people may still roll over and show their bellies to Microsoft, there are more companies out there willing to take the scorched earth approach to such patent demands: not only fight to an actual court ruling (not a settlement), but also fight to invalidate each and every nuisance patent they can identify as belonging to the vulture.
Bitmovin
Cloudflare
Newegg
Rackspace
None of these were frying Microsoft, true. But I suspect Microsoft may be walking a little more cautiously because of these.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patent List
how much does it cost to obtain a patent? If they spent 1 million bucks to obtain those 1000 patents, that money must have a value. Only way to get value for patents is to use them to prevent reimplementation of the same technology. AV1 is such reimplementation...
So, if you claim that AV1 is free of these patent concerns, you need to figure out how to make that 1 million bucks worth something after they bought the patents, and still somehow disconnect AV1 from the patents.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Patent List
"how much does it cost to obtain a patent?"
That's irrelevant, look into sunk cost fallacy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Patent List
i think your internet memes are no match to the power of 1 million bucks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Oh, joy, it's you again.
I'm just going to see your ridiculous apologism for patent hoarding and trolling and raise you with a "Personal Audio LLC got their podcasting patents revoked".
Suck it, Meshpage!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
So, facts are "memes" now, got it.
"the power of 1 million bucks"
1 million only has power to purchase something. However, if spent badly, the end purchase may be worth much less than what was spent.
You, of all people, should understand this. Spent wisely, thousands of dollars has great value that can reap rewards worth many times the original outlay. But, since you chose to piss it away on an incomprehensible bus advertisement that played in front of an audience who would not consider your website even if they could understand the ad, it was worthless.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
It's now possible for you to prove that you're not the same kind of audience than the evil folks in the bus. Linux version of builder tool is now available.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Where are those evil folks in the bus? I want to be part of that number.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"It's now possible for you to prove that you're not the same kind of audience than the evil folks in the bus."|
People who watch an incomprehensible advertisement that neither tells them what a site is nor why they should visit are "evil" because they don't use it? I guarantee you don't buy every product that's advertised to you, therefore "evil" by your own standards.
"Linux version of builder tool is now available."
Cool, I might check it out some time, then. Just be prepared for the possibility that I will still mock it for its poor design. I could change my mind, but going by the poor grasp of reality that you display elsewhere, I may still laugh at the poor design of your product. You just won't have the fact that I haven't looked at the end product as an excuse for how badly it fails compared to its better known competitors that I have used.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
You'll be just mocking your own future. Every new product is a prediction of what the world will look like in the future, this builder thing is just one programmer's view of what future will be like. It's the most cutting edge prediction of the future that you'll see in a while, so consiquences of that prediction are still difficult for you to see, but the future is coming like a train, you simply cannot stop it once it started moving.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Or, more likely, your software doesn't achieve anything like you claim it does, and the reason you're so angry at Pixar and Blender is because they're so much more competent than you are. I'll go in with an open mind, but I don't expect much.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
even if its not my implementation that makes that area popular, it is guaranteed that someone will do it -- it's the only thing technology can do after the current phone software expands to new areas.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"even if its not my implementation that makes that area popular, it is guaranteed that someone will do it"
Yes, the successful competitors you keep whining about.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
they just seem to be quite late to the market....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"they just seem to be quite late to the market"
So?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Because unlike you, they actually spend time making their "late market" solutions more accessible for users, instead of forking out money on a trash advertisement and expecting to get paid for their effort.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
How was my solution of actually providing linux version of builder not making the software more accessible for users?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent L
"How was my solution of actually providing linux version of builder not making the software more accessible for users?"
That did make it more accessible. However, you only did that after months/years of whining about competing products like Renderman and Blender, which already had that compatibility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
But therein lies the joke: the fact is that he paid a London bus advertisement, got one negative review on a shitty dead teenager wordpress blog, and he thinks that not only has his initial investment paid off, it's what's going to bring in the big bucks. Magically.
Meshpage of all people is not going to understand this, ever. He's just going to throw up his hands and wonder why nobody's paid him or his useless "Pixar competitor" software any modicum of attention, because he did the same stupid thing when he was an actual programmer on some poor bastard's payroll and fucked off after he decided he wasn't a corporate culture fit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
your plan wasn't anything better
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
My plan was to not waste money on a bus, in another country I didn't live in, for a throwaway review by a teenager in yet another country. The result? No monetary loss.
I'd say that's far better than a plan where you spend years of time working on shitty software, as well as thousands of dollars to bribe a foreign bus service so they play it on their transport vehicles, and all you got out of it was one review trashing your site and software.
You sunk thousands of dollars into that plan and got sweet jack fuck all. I get the satisfaction every time you come here to sing the support for Lincoln Bandlow and John Steele and didn't even pay a cent.
No, fam, I've got the superior plan. Which is not hard to do with the bar you set.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
I think your "facts" might have wrong city name stored. It didn't happen in london.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Then prove where it did happen. But you copyright-types have been consistently allergic to proof and standards of evidence so the odds of you putting anything substantial on the table is pretty bottom of the barrel.
That's what happens when you put everything substantial you do have in a shitty bus ad. Oh snap!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"your plan wasn't anything better"
The plan of competently marketing the product to an audience in the market for the product?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
I've done that before and met with a lot more than a single negative review. To be fair, the product was sub-standard. It hurt at the time but in retrospect I totally understand the outcome. C'est la vie. I learned from it, unlike at least one other posting in these comments.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Context?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Just a head's up in case you've missed it but you're dealing with a self-admitted troll here, so keep that in mind if you're going to be interacting with them in order to save yourself some headaches from taking anything they say seriously.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"Just a head's up in case you've missed it but you're dealing with a self-admitted troll here..."
Indeed. TP admitting he's a troll showed us that his malicious drivel around here is deliberate and only meant to waste everyone's time and spam the thread asunder. If anything that makes his case sadder. I doubt many people would pay him to astroturf so he then spends so very much time only to be annoying.
That's an even sadder life than the "fat, dumb and racist" label many usually pin on Hamilton.
I usually spend exactly ONE response on TP's garbage if no one else has sunk his latest drivel, then flag his post. I advise everyone else to consider the same measures.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
I usually spend exactly ONE response on TP's garbage if no one else has sunk his latest drivel, then flag his post. I advise everyone else to consider the same measures.
In the past I just flagged them as funny since there's no 'delusional and with only a theoretical relation to reality' button, but reading your comment and putting some more thought into it I auto-flag the resident trolls who have demonstrated through their actions that they aren't interested in an honest discussion and are just here to troll, and with them literally admitting that they probably do belong in that category as well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"...I auto-flag the resident trolls who have demonstrated through their actions that they aren't interested in an honest discussion..."
Oh, most of them - like Baghdad Bob's infamous wordwalls, DO merit a response simply because it's always amusing to try to count just how many times he's being disingenious, outright wrong, or conflating a klein bottle for factual logic.
TP, however, is another case. Take a look at the times he's persisted trolling all the way until the thread format turned into a single vertical line of single letters and the entire thread turned completely unreadable.
At that point he's turned a whole TD forum topic into an unreadable mess. From a troll standard "Job done", i guess.
Hence why he merits different treatment.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"i think your internet memes are no match to the power of 1 million bucks."
The "sunk cost fallacy" is a basic concept of modern economics and is taught in university courses on economics.
Sometimes it is indeed better to keep silent and allow people to suspect you of being a moron than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
But thank you, TP, for demonstrating that you are even more inept in basic economics than you are in basic law and IT.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"The "sunk cost fallacy" is a basic concept of modern economics and is taught in university courses on economics."
It's also basic common sense. Anyone who's invested in anything in the real world should understand that just because you spend X on something, that doesn't mean the end value with be X. Some investments are safer than others, but any honest seller will warn that the value could be lower than X.
Someone who bought stock or Bitcoin last week took a risk that has got them way less than X today. It's up to them whether they cash out at a loss today or hold on in the hope that the value increases, but nobody owes them money if they made a bad investment.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
For this to happen, there needs to be some mechanism which changes the value of the product. These mechanisms are well known and anyone buying bitcoin should know about under what mechanism the value keeps changing.
Under the previous discussion about people buying patents and your position is that the patent did not originally have the value at all. I.e. copyright and patent office was selling fraud when they didn't warn that the patents purchased does not have the effect that was advertised.
Given that it's possible to sue the people for patent infringement if they don't follow the limitations, I would consider the patent still have the required value. The mechanism how patents change their value does not seem to be used when a merely buying the patent simply makes those millions spent on the patent to disappear.
Basically your info is bullshit. Money simply does not disappear when you buy stuff. It just changes to different forms.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"copyright and patent office was selling fraud when they didn't warn that the patents purchased does not have the effect that was advertised"
I don't think that profiteering through patent hoarding was something the patent office was advertising. Though, I do understand that greedy idiots such as yourself need to have common sense risks spelled out to you in large print.
"Money simply does not disappear when you buy stuff."
No, but the end product may not be worth what you paid for. I'm not surprised that you're ignorant of real world things like investment risks and inflation, though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
This is actually very good usage of patents. The reason why this is good is because the owner of the patent had to take money position that takes some of the investment risk away from the developers when they buy patents. The cost of the patent is comparable to the technology and research development cost. That cost can reach millions or billions. When you buy a patent, you absorb some of that development cost.
As a owner of patent, you're obviously going to get money from other companies by licensing your patents. You're entitled this money simply because you absorbed some of the technology development cost.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
If you think profiteering is a good use of patents, you have completely missed the point why patents exists in the first place.
You aren't entitled anything if the patent is worthless in the real world regardless how much money was poured into it. That we have patent-trolls trying to shake down companies with dubious patents ("on a computer") goes to to show how some people are just money-grubbing assholes that are a drag on society.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
If it's worthless, then you'd not be using that technology. So all the talk about vendors need to use outdated standards simply to avoid the patents is just bullshit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
I do wonder. Despite your previous admission to trolling, are you actually doing this for fun (which makes you a very sad example of humanity), or do you actually not understand the fundamental points of the issues at hand?
It's hard not to take you at your word as being a troll, but then why would anybody find it entertaining to defend patent trolls by pretending to be utterly ignorant of your chosen profession and the most basic issues that affect your livelihood?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
I don't think its easy to be a patent troll. Last week's 100 million euro purchase of the patents are burning a hole in your wallet with interest rate that needs to be recouped every week. They simply don't have any other choice than get companies in line feeding you money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"Last week's 100 million euro purchase of the patents are burning a hole in your wallet with interest rate that needs to be recouped every week"
Yeah, that's what I mean. Rather than recognise you made a bad investment, or even better realise it's a bad investment before you made it, you think the best response is for others to pay you back the money you threw away by being a terrible decision maker.
Consitant for you, but not a basis for any sane legal policy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent L
Do you have any idea how much goodwill you'll receive from the folks that keep developing this technology, if only you took 100 million worth of burden away from the people who spent 2 billion euros a year for developing the tech you love to use?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pate
Wrong, the people actually developing a technology keep their patents to protect their investment. Only failing companies, or the receiver when they go bankrupt, or those with patents no longer relevant to their activities sell on their patents.
Besides which, when it comes to software, the open source approach has allowed Linux to dominate everything from data centres to embedded systems, with the desktop being the last holdout, and even there. Microsoft is providing a Linux system for power users.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
When you have 300 patents available after the development, maybe giving 2 or 3 to a patent troll might be good idea.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"When you have 300 patents available after the development, maybe giving 2 or 3 to a patent troll might be good idea."
You're saying that the people who actually developed the tech should give their patents to people who didn't?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
There's obviously some money involved. It would obviously be done to fix your cash flow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And the money involved is precisely why judges are starting to be careful about giving patent trolls the money they want.
Funny how your operations just fucking bowl over as soon as a judge looks at its legitimacy. It's almost like your patents don't have a goddamn (patented) leg to stand on.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"The cost of the patent is comparable to the technology and research development cost"
No, it's not, which is why people dislike the patent trolls you support, which provided none of that research costs and get their money from taking from those who did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Patent List
The simple answer to the above statement is No.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"The simple answer to the above statement is No."
Although TP is a self-confessed troll it IS at least true that to the fanatics of the First Church Of Copyright it's "obvious" that tossing a dollar down a wishing well MUST provide tangible returns. Because IP law.
The usual problem with copyright cultists. They don't understand what "value" means. Or math, for that matter.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Why are you (as a wishing well operator) providing service that does NOT provide tangible return to customers? I consider such services to be illegal marketing lies, which are not allowed to exists in the market. Especially marketing your product without first doing necessary steps to ensure that it's possible for customers to receive benefit from the product is called fraud.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
And this is how we know, again, you have no idea what you're talking about.
If lies didn't exist in advertising politics as we know it today would not happen. But that's why I have an adblock on my browsers, which you copyright fanatics say us tantamount to stealing.
In fact, non-tangible anything is the product you snake oil peddlers flog all the time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
so, you admit stealing from the content industry
getting snake oil to market is better position than what you managed to do
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"so, you admit stealing from the content industry"
No. If, for example, he uses adblock to protect against the many viruses that propagate through badly created ads, but he also supports the site through Patreon, then he's not "stealing". If, however, the only way you can support your site is through malware that literally steals from those who fall prey to the malware, then the site itself if stealing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Tero Pulkinnen is the sort of asshole who would put malware into your computer to fund his mansion. What did you expect? Civility? Ethics?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Let me know if you find any from my products, and I'll fix the build immediately. It's simply bad business to scare away freebie customers simply to add adware.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
You already accused someone of stealing just because he blocks ads. I wouldn't trust you to get 4 by putting two and two together.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
it must be horrible world where you cannot trust other people. Trust is so fundamental that it must take tons of problems before you become indifferent and cold that you lose trust to the government. From this mistrust to government stems your problems with trusting ordinary people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Trust like respect is earned, or in your case thrown away by how you deal with other people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
you're somehow using the same keywords than what worst criminals in tv are using. Your criminal mindset should be fixed before it causes damage.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent L
The word 'respect' is misused so much that the dictionary will soon have to change its definition, similar to the word 'literally' it will soon mean the complete opposite of what is used to mean simply to coddle those in society that are unwilling to communicate honestly.
Who are these criminals in tv?
How does one fix a criminal mindset ... I ask this as a favor for those stuck in the gop mindset, they do have minds right? They just do not use them
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent L
In what goddamn universe do people automatically trust and respect someone who walks up to them on the street and says "I want a mansion, give me money so I can afford one"?
"Respect" is also a term the government, police and military use regularly, so... thanks for confirming that the country is run by the worst criminals, I guess.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Pate
If you can't trust that people contribute their time to the wellbeing of the society, then you simply cannot trust people. It sounds very sad.
It was more like "I want a mansion plans, help me build those using the provided tools"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If someone walked up to me on the street and asked me for directions to the train station I'd give it to them. If Tero Pulkinnen walked up to me on the street and asked me for directions to the train station, I'd know that he spent comment threads on Techdirt being angry that someone was allowed to make a subway system map and wasn't arrested by the police for it, and I would not give him those directions. Also because he's insisted that directions on a map is something that is copyrighted information that must be paid for, so I don't want to risk owing him any money.
And you're not in any position to bitch about trust, you literally left software programming teams after you couldn't trust them. So nice going, jacktard.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So you pirated the map and now trying to offer it to customers? I bet you asked some coins every time you displayed the pirated content? Sounds pretty similar to showing pirated hollywood movies to customers in a theather and asking for money.
my position is significantly better than you'd ever contemplate.
only after these people did illegal operations, comparable to human rights violations.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm not the one trolling a website about how he thinks cartography works. Your position is a joke.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
"Why are you (as a wishing well operator) providing service that does NOT provide tangible return to customers?"
Have you asked any malls about their wishing well fountains? What tangible return does the water display provide to customers, and don't give me that feng shui stuff.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Patent List
This page says $5000 to $15,000 generally, to initially obtain it. Patent trolls likely get them for much less in corporate bankruptcies etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Patent List
The minimum cost is $130, plus $100-150 per page for drawings. The real cost in filing a patent comes from hiring a patent lawyer to "weasel-word" the document. If your patent doesn't read like every other patent it will be denied upon receipt.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Patent List
I'd guess that
The whole point of the project was to produce something disconnected from (non-royalty-free) patents. Anyone claiming otherwise should provide the patent numbers it's allegedly infringing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Lawyers make $900/hr arguing about whether a patent is infringed or not.
Unless you've both:
Your guess is probably not worth the same $900/hr.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Patent List
Considering how long it takes a lawyer to properly review one patent against a potentially infringing product, there are several lawyer years requires to review all those patents.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Patent List
Not necessary, as that is an investment, and investments always involve a risk that the return will be zero.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patent List
This took all of 2 minutes to find:
https://www.sisvel.com/images/documents/Video-Coding-Platform/PatentList_VP9_10032020.pdf
http s://www.sisvel.com/images/documents/Video-Coding-Platform/PatentList_AV1_10032020.pdf
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patent List
Here you go.
https://www.sisvel.com/images/documents/Video-Coding-Platform/PatentList_AV1_10032020.pdf
https://w ww.sisvel.com/images/documents/Video-Coding-Platform/PatentList_VP9_10032020.pdf
EF
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Patent List
Sisvel DID release the list on March 10, 2020. It's on their website.
Sisvel isn't a good guy here but let's at least be honest.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Can the developers of AV1 request that Sisvel provide documentation on how each of their patents reads on AV1?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Sisvel is in the shakedown phase right now, so they won't be giving up any of that information. They're hoping to get as many entities as possible to pay them license fees that will likely be cheaper than going to court.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Hopefully, everyone fights this instead.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Would it be cheaper to subsidize a patreon to one of the southern Italian persuasion family companies to convince him to cease or decease ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Nice diligence keyboard warrior /s
https://sisvel.com/licensing-programs/audio-and-video-coding-decoding/video-coding-platform/paten ts
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
All I see are lists of numeric codes and digits and no actual text description of any of this stuff. Might be my phone browser though.
I noted Kenwood in the list.
As far as I remember all their older patents are hardware related outside of their proprietary device communication protocol. I still have my Sovereign system which has both Dolby and THX codecs but those are licensed implementations and not stand alone. They never rolled their own codecs AFAIK.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's an overview of patents, claims and illustrative sections of the VP9 or AV1 standard. This isn't my technical area at all but for anyone actually working in IP, this is all you would need to determine infringement.
The bias is mind blowing anyway. Comically long blog post headline should be:
"Group of global super long established technology companies has the audacity to try and make a return on money they spend in R&D which led to the cool tech we use"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If patent holders had to prove that the "cool tech" was based on their research, for it to be considered infringing, there would be a lot less bitching about the patent system.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Cool tech was a generic example for the subject matter of these kinds of discussions - I'll leave it you to decide what is and isn't "cool tech". For clarity I wasn't making a comment one way or the other with regards to VP9 or AV1 which I actually don't know much about from a technical perspective.
So, you're actually mad at the USPTO for granting these patents in the first place? Or SSO's? If your issue is genuinely with the patent owner then just dispute their claims of infringement?
Any comment on the bias mentioned or just making a closed remark backed up only by your opinion?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
All well and good, except in this case we have a company that has bought up patents on the cheap from failed companies, and is trying to use them to seek rent from people who are actually doing the innovation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sorry - I don't understand this at all, all the tech companies in this effort "bought up patents"? or some of them? or none of them?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Software is provided with copyright protection, it does not need patents. In fact, patents make the software industry much less efficient and therefore much less profitable in the long term.
Wait, are these two thousand patents they are suing a software outfit over even software patents?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Who's getting sued?
You raise an interesting point re: software patents. Can anyone clarify?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
What you are missing is that many of the patents Sisvel are weaponizing now comes from MPEG-LA, and MPEG-LA tried to go after AV1 och VP9 earlier and the Department of Justice took some interest in what they where doing at which point MPEG-LA immediately stopped asserting that VP9 infringed on their patent pool.
Isn't it kind of convenient that we now have a company that use the same patent pool to go after VP9 and AV1 again?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Re: DoJ & MPEG LA's effort, that's super interesting - I didn't know about that. Kind of mind blowing it's not mentioned at all in the blog post we're all commenting on. Do you have any useful recommended further reading on this?
Are you sure it was VP9 and not VP8? I could only find this: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Google-and-MPEG-LA-make-a-deal-over-VP8-codec-Update-1818785. html.
Sorry to bug you but one more question, are the MPEG LA and Sisvel VP9 AV1 pools exactly the same in terms of patent owners?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sorry, you are correct - it was VP8. But it's the same patent pool expanded with some more patents from other sources.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Google involved the DOJ and then signed a licensing agreement with MPEG LA for “techniques that may be essential to VP8 and earlier-generation VPx video compression technologies under patents owned by 11 patent holders.” As the article says, "Chances are Google had to pay for this license, but the financial details of the agreement were not disclosed."
https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/07/google-and-mpeg-la-sign-licensing-agreement-cover ing-googles-vp8-video-codec-clearing-the-way-for-wider-adoption/
There doesn't appear to be a DOJ play here as Sisvel performed all the normal due diligence required by pools. Google/AOM may attempt to play that card, but I wouldn't assume it would work now or that it worked in 2013.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You got it from wikipedia, that's a hard one to justify usually.
Also, from your brief description of it those patents should have expired 20+ years ago.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's a bit surprising; I'd have figured it would be closer to 80%, by the 80-20 principle.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You will then be surprised by the physical volume of botnet spam spewing through the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Simply a follow on from the restricting exercised by the Entertainment Industries. With their fear of losing a penny, they have held back technology and grossly restricted usage and development. How sad that the whole planet had to suffer because of a few, yet again, who refuse to adapt to change and are so dcared of losing control!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is the problem with patent trolls, they use old patents to sue people and get money for nothing,
When companys go bust they leave behind patents that can be bought
very cheaply and used to sue other companys for millions of dollars.
The companys that make up av1 media have they money to go to court and try to invalidate the patent,s or show the patents are not relevant in relation to
the new streaming format codec.
Sisvel is not really a tech company so i dont think google or other tech companys could sue them over using certain software
in order to defend the new streaming standard .
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
It sounds like your assumption is that a patent pool=patent trolls, no gray, all black and white. And that patent pools exert only negative influences on the market.
If so, why are H.264 and HEVC the most widely used codecs on the market today (excluding MPEG-2 which is also subject to a pool)?
Why have so few companies adopted VP9? Or AV1 for that matter? Because they don't trust that the technologies are truly open source and don't want to step into potential litigation.
You are correct in saying "The companys that make up av1 media have they money to go to court and try to invalidate the patent,s or show the patents are not relevant in relation to the new streaming format codec." That's how the system works.
BTW, of all the patent pool administrators, Sisvel is likely the most technical. (see here - https://www.sisvel.com/about-us/r-d-and-technical-expertise). It doesn't mean that Google can sue them into submission but it does mean that there's a lot of technical credibility to any pool that they form.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
those big companies should utterly utterly bankrupt sisvel itself AND drag every single employee through the courts until they're all homeless bums giving handjobs for burgers. Stamp on them so hard that there is NOTHING left of the company OR it's employees.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
To keep something free..
You must copyright the Something.
You can have 1000 companies all work on a project, and 1 person inside the group can go out and make a Patent claim before it hits the Registration. Before its even finished.
That 1 person can install 1000's of Patents based on the Main idea and concept of the Patent.
Those that are working on making it, have to work around all these Concepts.
THE OLD system was based on the idea you HAD to have an up and working product, NOW all you need is the idea. And it can JUST be an idea, and when a product uses or creates it. THEY can get screw'd...
its like the reverse of Youtube, which only requires a CLAIM, and no proof of ownership. of something in a video.
Computer CR is like the Pharma business, after something has been around along time, they Change the format/style/shape and rename it, and it does the SAME stuff as the previous option.
How many versions of USB or HDMI do you think there are? If you dont have the right cable, you may find out.
HDMI has gotten to the point of audio and networking is on 1 cable With the video, but not all cable are setup that way.
It would be neat, to ban all CR on Programming and Hardware. It would drop prices on cellphones by AT LEAST 1/2 and many computers would drop in price, but FEW corps would Hate it all to hell, as this is how many make money.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]