Re: [W3C Web and TV IG] Adaptive streaming MPEG DASH liaison

On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Alexander Adolf <alexander.adolf@me.com> wrote:
> Dear Steve,
>
> On 2011-03-19, at 10:54 , Steve Lhomme wrote:
>
>> [...]
>> What are the guarantees that this cannot happen ? Is the MPEG, 3GPP
>> and/or W3C responsible for doing a deep patent search to make sure it
>> can be declared royalty free ?
>
> There's no guarantees in life, and no patent search, whatever the depth, will ensure you're safe from anything.
>
> My personal experience with patent pools is this: If someone comes along later, claiming that he had patents in the tech, the patent pool will act as a mediator. In practice this comes down to the new kid on the block being added to the patent pool. I have never seen retro-active claims on pooled patents in such a situation. And on what grounds would you want to claim them? The licensees have demonstrated their good intentions by getting a licence from the pool. So it is their fault not having responded to the patent pool's call for patent holders back then. So it is safer than any patent research in that you as licensee have documented that you don't want to cheat on anyone; hence in practice you should be safe from retro-active claims.

Is there a patent pool planned for DASH ? What would be the point of
spending money on that if the technology is going to be offered free
or charge in the end anyway ?

-- 
Steve Lhomme
Matroska association Chairman

Received on Saturday, 2 April 2011 12:18:42 UTC