Re: Formal Objection to One vendor, One Veto

On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 5:07 PM, David Singer<singer@apple.com> wrote:
> At 14:25  +1000 15/07/09, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
> <some useful background on h.264>
>>
>> I do not think that setting up a patent pool for Theora makes any sense at
>> all:
>>
>> first -  the only known patents that Theora makes use of are the ones
>> owned by On2 and On2 have already provided royalty-free licenses to
>> these; so, it would be a very lonesome pool
>
> actually, as has been pointed out, the only statement we can find seems to
> be a license to the software and derivative works of it, not to the
> underlying patents (and hence independent implementations)

This is being worked on. There should be a reaction to it some time
soon. Lawyers take their time to reply to such requests of
clarification. :)


>> secondly - there are no royalties to distribute, which would make the
>> exercise pointless
>
> not quite.  it is possible to ask all patent holders to offer a free license
> to everyone who either confesses they have no IPR, or who thinks they may
> but is also willing to offer a free license.  This leaves the IPR owner
> wishing to charge 'out in the cold' without a license to all the base IPR.
>  I think this is what Dirac does.

That's a good approach, too.


> It does not protect against a someone who has IPR but no intent to use the
> technology

Yes, but that is also the case for the MPEG-LA patent pool.

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Wednesday, 15 July 2009 08:16:28 UTC