MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

A existence of a patent pool does not preclude the creation of a second one.

> The companies involved with the development of MPEG-4 AVC/h.264 were patenting their "discoveries" while they were working on it.

It it's like any other patent-ecrusted 'standard' (like GSM, for example) then they went to great lengths specifically to incorporate patents into them.

That is instead of patenting parts of the codec during it's creation, they really designed the codec to be covered by as many patents as possible.

The whole patent system, especially the software part, needs to die a quick and painful death. It's a cancerous albatross hanging around the neck of technology hindering innovation and punishing productive companies and individuals at every corner. The laws are responsible for massive destruction of innovation and disruption of healthy economic activity.

> Even if they were found, the two companies would likely simply enter into a cross-licensing agreement.

Only if that suites their agenda.

> That's how patents are used nowadays.

Patents are mostly used in three ways:

1. The most common thing is that they sit around and do nothing. The companies that create them don't use them for anything, do not license them for anything, and have no benefit from them in any measurable way except for one... When the accounts come around they count as assets and they can use them to as bullet points to make them seem more innovative. That is probably 90-95% of all patents.

This is harmless.

2. Huge companies invest a great deal of money in patents for purpose #1, but in addition they cross license everything with one another. This way they use patents to form a cabal of privileged 'IP owners' that use it as a weapon to dramatically reduce the threat from competition from smaller and more nimble companies and organizations.

This is what is happening to Google, WebM, Open source community right now and has been going on for years.

This is damaging to markets, limits innovation, and prevents small players from growing. This is also why you don't see large established players like Microsoft or IBM calling out for the abolishment of patents even though it's a huge administrative burden and they are the frequent target or lawsuits.

3. Companies that are market failures, or IP holding companies that produce no products and provide no services, go around extorting successful and productive companies with threats of lawsuits. This is the

This is maddening and is a constant threat to all players big and small.

They could also refuse to license their patents entirely, thus killing the standard. If Google or similar were to somehow get their hands on an essential H.264 patent right now then I suspect this option would be tempting (though the publicity would be terrible).