Motorola and its affiliated entities are notably absent [LWN.net]

Motorola and its affiliated entities are notably absent

Posted Apr 25, 2011 18:48 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048)
Parent article: The WebM Community Cross-License Initiative launches

Apart from the fact that the group of 17 members is highly unlikely to collectively own all patents that are essential to WebM, I'm surprised that Motorola, a major Android adopter, is absent. A Motorola subsidiary named General Instrument Corporation is suing other companies over various codec-related patents, including (but not necessarily limited to) U.S. patents no. 5,949,948, 6,356,708, 7,310,374, 7,310,375, 7,310,376, and 7,529,465.

Motorola and its affiliated entities are notably absent

Posted Apr 25, 2011 22:06 UTC (Mon) by david.a.wheeler (subscriber, #72896) [Link] (1 responses)

You say that, "Apart from the fact that the group of 17 members is highly unlikely to collectively own all patents that are essential to WebM...".

Um, evidence required. It's not at all clear that there are ANY other patents essential to WebM, other than the ones that Google bought and released. Yes, MPEG-LA claims that there are some, but they are NOT a disinterested party; their entire business model depends on extortion of funds for the use of ANY format. I haven't seen a strong analysis showing specific patents (with patent numbers), why WebM necessarily infringes, *and* why those patents will stand in court.

Motorola and its affiliated entities are notably absent

Posted Apr 26, 2011 4:23 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

I would agree with you that evidence is required for MPEG LA to collect royalties. The statement their spokesman made to The H Online suggests they're working on just that.

I said "highly unlikely" because the realm of codecs is a terrible patent thicket. Also, in terms of credibility, Google originally claimed that its own patents were sufficient and now presents a 17-member pool, which is in and of itself already a bit inconsistent with the original claim.