LWN: Comments on "MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec "

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

dmag — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:01:24 +0000

> IE is already the standard. De facto. Everyone already supports it. FireFox/Opera/Chrome/Safari is crazy if they think they can change the tide that has already washed over 95% of the market.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

randomguy3 — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 16:44:21 +0000

It's harmless unless and until they move to 2 (because they become or get bought up by a major player) or 3 (because the company starts to go under).

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

njs — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:17:34 +0000

I bet there are a bunch of ways around this in practice. Sell the patents to a troll, switch to a clean-room implementation of WebM and pay any damages for their previous usage, etc. These companies can afford sneaky lawyers.

Having that clause in the WebM license is better than not having it, but it's no guarantee.

In other news - "MPEG envisages royalty-free MPEG video coding standard"

butlerm — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:34:30 +0000

This problem affects the RAND standards too - a previously unknown company could pop up at any moment and announce that it has a relevant patent and it wants $5Bn in license fees or damages from say, Apple.

Patents are evil - there is not much you can do about that except repeal the patent laws.

Video is widespread

pabs — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:17:18 +0000

I was challenging your notion that the only site that counts is Youtube. Clearly that is not the case.

It's not quite as hard for Google to switch youtube as you think

rahvin — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:26:18 +0000

IMO that's what this is, had they truly been forming a patent pool for lawsuit purposes it wouldn't be a public announcement. They will absolutely never ever sue Google or anyone else with the ability to afford lawyers. For if they do, and VP8 is found to not infringe the patents in the pool then Google has the best marketing available for why to use VP8.

No, they won't sue. They will spread lots and lots of FUD about this dangerous patent pool, and they may go after a few easy targets but they absolutely will never ever sue Google or anyone with deep enough pockets to support a patent lawsuit. They simply can't risk the revenues, at least not until it's apparent that VP8 has fully sidelined H.264 and their licensing revenue falls off a cliff.

patents make GIF the most safe for use today

rahulsundaram — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:54:55 +0000

The common technique is to keep applying for more patents on a underlying technology that builds on the old patents as soon as the old ones are nearer to the expiry date therefore keeping it patent encumbered forever. For instance, a patent on rendering GIF images faster might be patent encumbered and that particular optimization might be in common use. GIF is unlikely to be of that much interest to pursue this path but other more high profile stuff like multimedia codecs are likely following this strategy.

patents make GIF the most safe for use today

pizza — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:31:56 +0000

Given that the GIF spec was first published in 1987, 24 years ago, the last of the patents that could have applied to GIF expired in a few years ago.

(Yeah, I know it's slightly more complicated than that, but the bottom line is that GIF is now as safe from unknown patents as any other bit of software could ever be)

patents make GIF the most safe for use today

rahulsundaram — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 10:31:33 +0000

That doesn't mean that GIF is not infringing on other patents.

It's not quite as hard for Google to switch youtube as you think

PaulWay — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 23:40:17 +0000

I suspect we can do better than that:

I show my brother a video on my Android and he looks it up on his iPhone. My VP8 video looks better and is lower bandwidth than his h.264 video. Case closed.

In other words, mobile _is_ the market VP8 should be aiming for.

I think the MPEG-LA wants to keep us thinking that h.264 is what 'everyone' uses, that 'everyone' wants it, and 'everything' is in h.264 - with the implication that video on the web has to be in h.264 or people will go elsewhere. The reality is that the users don't really care - if VP8 gets implemented then the users just go with that. MPEG-LA's only success is to get browsers to use h.264, and that will fade as soon as VP8 gets implemented everywhere because it's cheaper to license (as in free).

(I also think most platform vendors know that h.264 is a devil's bargain, and would gladly implement anything else - as soon as its licensing was clear and proven. This is why MPEG-LA is stirring the pot - they want as much FUD about licensing anything else as possible because then licensing h.264 doesn't look as bad. If you're given the alternative of eating a toad, eating a worm doesn't sound so bad...)

Have fun,

Paul

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

jmalcolm — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:48:51 +0000

I mostly agree with you. However, the way that Google is licensing WebM introduces a wrinkle.

If WebM becomes popular, many companies that have actual customers will want to use it. If they do, the WebM license limits their ability to pursue patent suits later.

So, if somebody has patents that they think are material to WebM they may need to choose between opposing it's adoption now or participating in it later.

This does not apply to pure patent trolls of course.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

jmalcolm — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:40:11 +0000

I guess it depends on if "support" means that they are all for it and plan to do everything they can to make it successful or if you limit "support" to mean that the current release has the capability.

What is taking them so long? Well, it is simply taking them a long time to release Firefox 4. The delay with WebM is entirely incidental to that.

Does the beta count? Matter of opinion I guess, but I have been using Firefox 4 for so long that I have trouble remembering what Firefox 3.5 (or 3.6 now I suppose) does or does not support.

In a discussion about what kind of "support" WebM is getting relative to H.264, it seems entirely correct to raise that a browser of Firefox's stature is committed to WebM and ideologically opposed to H.264. This fact will not be a trivial consideration when content providers choose video formats in the future.

In a lot of ways, we seem to be entering a game of chicken with IE and iOS on one side and Firefox and Android on the other.

In other news - "MPEG envisages royalty-free MPEG video coding standard"

tialaramex — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:07:07 +0000

For MPEG, the worst outcome would be irrelevance. Suppose you spend a whole bunch of days sat in meetings trying to get agreement on whether the value N in this algorithm should be (a) 32 (b) 16 (c) set by a flag to either 32 or 16 or (d) discretely variable between 4 and 64 in powers of 2. Well if you do that and then nobody (or even less than 10%) use the resulting codec then you have been wasting your time.

Standards work is only fulfilling if you are able to change the world. Preferably for the better, but sometimes it feels like making things worse would at least be an improvement on being ignored.

So when you tell a standards body "nobody uses these standards because..." that is really important feedback which they will try to react to. Right now the message is "patent encumbrance is a problem". They don't hear this from you or me, we're too small for the committee to notice. But Mozilla and Google are not too small.

Traditionally, outfits like MPEG felt that RAND was good enough. They visualised the implementer as a medium sized company, able to afford a lawyer, at least on a part time basis, to sort out the paperwork, and able to afford RAND license fees from their income doing... whatever they did. But in Free Software obviously the implementer is sometimes a 14 year old in his bedroom. He doesn't have a lawyer, and he can't afford any fees, and if he is important (even if only symbolically) then RAND is not good enough any more.

So participation in MPEG requires RAND. But they could easily change that, for a subcommittee, for the whole of MPEG or for the entire Joint Technical Committee (the ISO IEC collaboration that is responsible for MPEG) and it seems they are in the process of trying just that.

Notice that on its own this fixes very little, though it's an encouraging sign. It doesn't fix much because the patent terms apply only to those who contribute to the specific standard. Any patent troll will skip the "royalty free" work, and they then remain free to demand any terms they like. This problem affects the RAND standards too - a previously unknown company could pop up at any moment and announce that it has a relevant patent and it wants $5Bn in license fees or damages from say, Apple.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

cesarb — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 13:00:22 +0000

Firefox does NOT support WebM yet. A beta release does not count. (What is taking them so long?)

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

njs — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:36:25 +0000

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).

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

njs — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 02:23:16 +0000

> Prior to engaging in this business MPEG-LA requested a review of their business plan by the DOJ, their letter outlined quite a few operating conditions which they appear to have since ignored, and the DOJ outlined a number of constraints which MPEG-LA has subsequently violated

I didn't know about that history, and it's fascinating, thank you. However, I'm not sure what operating constraints you're referring to -- all I saw in that letter was a bunch of "well, this kind of thing could be a problem, but you are awesome and wrote your license not to do that, so, yay". Probably I'm just not familiar enough with their history. (Obviously the statements you refer to are questionable, but I don't see what they have to do with the contents of that letter.)

> Even if they believe the risk to be small, taking it still requires an expenditure of resources to assess the risk and benefits, supporting my speculation that they are actually concerned about this, which was really the point that I was making.

Totally agreed.

If only someone would tell the people who keep popping up to explain how anyone who takes WebM seriously is an idiot...

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

gmaxwell — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 01:20:42 +0000

As I understand it patent pools have been to been considered to at extreme risk of running into legal problems. In particular, the concern is that the aggregation of patents may unlawfully lock out other parties from participating in an industry (/without paying the previously standing players). Patent _are_ a government granted monopoly. The infrastructure that creates these things also provides a lot of opportunity to hang regulatory hooks on the results.

It's fine to patent a particular method for coding video it can be okay to assemble a collection of strictly necessary complementary patents require to code video in a particular way it's not lawful to assemble a cartel which anyone who wants to code video must deal with.

The CEO of MPEG-LA has made statements which run squarely into the danger zone here. "Virtually all codecs are based on patented technology, and many of the essential patents may be the same as those that are essential to AVC/H.264." ... //thats a nice codec you've got there, it would be a shame if anyone asserted patents against it//

Prior to engaging in this business MPEG-LA requested a review of their business plan by the DOJ, their letter outlined quite a few operating conditions which they appear to have since ignored, and the DOJ outlined a number of constraints which MPEG-LA has subsequently violated. In 1997 the DOJ was "not presently inclined to initiate antitrust enforcement action", but it certainly seems possible that the situation could change. (http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/busreview/215742.htm)

So, I think it's not clear cut at all that there is no legal danger in this approach. Even if they believe the risk to be small, taking it still requires an expenditure of resources to assess the risk and benefits, supporting my speculation that they are actually concerned about this, which was really the point that I was making.

Video is widespread

jmalcolm — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 23:04:08 +0000

Sites that rely on Flash will support WebM regardless of the underlying browser. Saying there is a lot of Flash out there is saying it will be easy to move from H.264 to WebM.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

jmalcolm — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 22:46:03 +0000

First, Firefox supports WebM. Depending where you are, Firefox is either the number two or even dominant browser by market share. Chrome is probably growing the fastest.

Second, Apple entered the music player market when it was very crowded. The market was also 90 percent or more MP3. Apple preferred ACC. What is Apple's market share now? Are the majority of online music sales MP3 or AAC?

It's not quite as hard for Google to switch youtube as you think

dlang — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 18:51:17 +0000

so encode the H.264 video at a nice low resolution suitable for mobile devices (say 320x200) and use vp8 for higher res versions

let H.264 gain a reputation from the people who don't know any better as being the bad looking version when viewed on a good screen :-)

It's not quite as hard for Google to switch youtube as you think

jpnp — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:15:40 +0000

People don't install H.264 to view youtube, they use one of two technologies:

1) Flash

2) HTML5 video

Currently, the vast, vast majority use option 1.

Adobe have announced that they will support vp8; once that is released it's up to google not end users which flash codec they see youtube with.

Today the majority of HTML5 video capable browsers (i.e. discount most IE which can't do HTML 5 at all) support vp8 rather than H.264; if the HTML5 use of youtube increases vastly there's no reason to think it won't be vp8.

I don't see why google couldn't throw the switch on desktop youtube a matter of months after flash starts to support it. These days flash installations get updated pretty quickly; the old versions tend to be a security nightmare and both Adobe and the browser makers push to get them updated.

The only real sticking point for google moving to vp8 for all their video delivery is mobile. iPads, android phones etc. currently have hardware support for H.264. Software vp8 offers poor performance and bad battery life in comparison. To switch mobile youtube to vp8 would require the widespread availability of hardware vp8, even in best case that will take years.

In other news - "MPEG envisages royalty-free MPEG video coding standard"

cesarb — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:52:46 +0000

It seems now MPEG (not MPEG LA, which is a separate entity) is joining the fun.

From a press release at http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/meetings/daegu11/daegu_press..., they seem to be planning to release a "royalty free" video standard.

The site where I found this (http://www.robglidden.com/2011/02/mpeg-envisages-royalty-...) mentions, in another post (http://www.robglidden.com/2010/08/mpeg-moves-forward-with...), that what they mean by "royalty free" is "[t]he Patent Holder is prepared to grant a free of charge license to an unrestricted number of applicants on a worldwide, non-discriminatory basis and under other reasonable terms and conditions to make, use, and sell implementations of the above document."

And their motivation seems to be helping "video distribution over the Internet" (see http://www.robglidden.com/2010/04/mpeg-resolution-on-roya... for the full quote).

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

cortana — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:07:10 +0000

> 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.

It's not always harmless. Every issued patent is a potential future threat, when the strategy of its owner changes to include patent shakedowns, or the patents are sold to (or the original company is bought by) another company whose business involves them.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

anselm — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 13:06:52 +0000

The MPEG LA itself (unlike its member companies) does not produce H.264 software. They just hold the patents. There would be no point in suing the MPEG LA for patent infringement.

All that a second patent pool could do is to make anyone producing implementations of the patents in question (including possibly the members of the current MPEG LA) pay license fees to both patent pools.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

epa — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:38:17 +0000

PNG has been a HUGE succes: nowadays nobody fears GIF lawsuits anymore.

Might not that have more to do with the LZW patent expiring in 2003?

Since 2003, PNG has supplanted GIF, but it only really took over after the GIF patent expired.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

renox — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:32:50 +0000

> PNG has been a HUGE succes: nowadays nobody fears GIF lawsuits anymore.

Uh? I remember someone trying to count the number of GIF&PNG images present on the web:
the number of GIF was higher than the number of PNG, so no PNG hasn't been a huge success.

The reason why nobody fear lawsuits about GIF is that the patent expired..

> If someone wanted to sue you about it, just switch to PNG and you're done. VP8 needs only to reach the same state: make it useless to sue about video codecs because switching is costless.

I understand what you're saying but it's wrong: remember that for a long time IE didn't decode correctly PNG..
There's the same issue for VP8, the switch is costless only if your users can read VP8..

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

exadon — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 09:51:45 +0000

Even if everyone supports it, that doesn't mean everyone likes it.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

jku — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 08:18:07 +0000

After Google drops support the only browser that supports H.264 web video is Safari, right? Calling that a 'defacto standard' may be a bit over-eager.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

drag — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:51:48 +0000

> Is there an antitrust train? I thought it was more of an antitrust golf cart...

When you see terms like 'antitrust laws' visualize other terms like '1984' and 'Department of Defense' floating around next to them. That way it will help give you a more accurate understanding what those laws are really for.

On top of that realize that patents they are government-sanctioned monopolies. The expressed purpose of them is to hand over control of technology to privileged companies. MPEG-LA and friends are just using the laws in the ways they are intended and there is no legal danger to them caused by their efforts to limit choice among consumers and the activities of competing companies.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

drag — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:26:52 +0000

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.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

njs — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:20:06 +0000

Is there an antitrust train? I thought it was more of an antitrust golf cart...

Well, that's glib, but: intent is hard to prove, and this is a strategic battle over who gets to collect rent on the entire TV and movie *industries* going forward. (See also: Microsoft's throwing cash at the Xbox to get a foothold on television.) When you have stakes like that, big companies often decide that it's rational to take risks and see what happens. (See also: Google's obviously dumb decision to start making illegal copies of every book in the world... which, a few years later, is within epsilon of giving them a legal monopoly in the US over orphan written works, effectively a total change to how copyright law works that only applies to a single company.)

Video is widespread

martinfick — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:29:31 +0000

Yeah, where are they? The are a few DRM video sites out there, big whoop. These are niche areas, supported only by custom proprietary apps, all different, hardly a standards threat to ...(?) anything really. By definiton, if it requires a plugin or custom app for most people, it isn't a standard. These aren't even remotely on the level of the pathetic activeX threat to the open web back in 1998. No, there is nothing even close to a web standard in video yet. Not that I am claiming that VP8 will be it, just that the battle hasn't really even begun and that the largest and most relevant web video content provider out there likely has more say than anyone else, especially since their content is free (as in beer).

Let's think a bit more about this, to see that this is nothing even remotely like GIF. Did Netscape require a plugin to view GIFs? How many web pages had GIFs in say 1995? Already more than there are web pages with videos in them today (likely)? But, by 10 years ago, the time of the original comparison, the question would be: how many GIFs to an html page do you think there were (10, 20?) No, this does not compare to any video format.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

gmaxwell — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:24:39 +0000

Not to mention that the google webm license is structured so that organizations which us webm in any way can't enforce patents against anyone over it. So this could only be a trolls only (non-practicing entities) "pool".

Considering that, as well as the market considerations you brought up, the only conceivable use for the pool is to stifle the availability of webm. This seems to deeply contract the MPEG-LA letter of intent and DOJ analysis.

So I must believe that VP8 has them running scared, either it's already making an impact on their bottom line or they're convinced that it will. Otherwise why jump right in front of the antitrust train in this manner?

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

njs — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 05:00:14 +0000

I'm not sure they are, directly. There's no way a VP8 patent pool rakes in big money -- the only compelling reason to use VP8 in the first place is that it's free. If it's not, then everyone will just go back to H.264.

My theory is Apple and the rest of the H.264 patent pool members are behind this, as a way to sow fear and uncertainty around VP8, and push people back towards H.264. If some actual patents show up, then of course they'll think that's great; H.264 wins immediately. But I don't think they expect that to happen. If they had any solid patent claims themselves, then they'd say so. Anyone else who has solid patent claims would be an idiot to try and join a VP8 patent pool; their only hopes for monetizing those patents are to either 1) stay quiet, hope VP8 beats H.264, and *then* start collecting royalties, or 2) sell them off to whichever of Google and the H.264 patent pool offers more cash. Neither option has anything to do with MPEG-LA.

I think this is just smoke and mirrors and publicity. (Which isn't to say that it won't be effective for them.)

Video is widespread

pabs — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 03:29:36 +0000

Uh, just look how many sites are supported by get-flash-videos, clive, cclive and similar programs. Then think about how many TV stations exist, may of those also have (Flash-based) on-demand video streaming.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

Imroy — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 02:37:50 +0000

> Somebody else needs to form a patent pool of patents that H.264 violates then sue the shit out of them.

Seeing as the thing being called "h.264" should really be referred to as "MPEG-4 AVC" (or even "MPEG-4 Part 10"), I think the MPEG-LA probably already has a patent pool for it. And they use it - to get licensing fees of people using AVC.

The companies involved with the development of MPEG-4 AVC/h.264 were patenting their "discoveries" while they were working on it. By the time it was finalised, MPEG-4 AVC/h.264 was covered by a mountain of patents from many companies. Good luck finding other patents to fight the MPEG-LA or its members. Even if they were found, the two companies would likely simply enter into a cross-licensing agreement. That's how patents are used nowadays.

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

jthill — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:48:13 +0000

Well, no, if you're going to post a correction for your original figure, how about posting the correction for your original figure?

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

Wol — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:08:48 +0000

Can they? If they won't say what the patents are, Google sues for a declaration of non-infringement. Can they seal the filings saying what the patents are?

And if they don't say with specificity, then Google should waltz away with the declaration.

Cheers,
Wol

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

Wol — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:06:07 +0000

Well, if they don't have any sense they'll be a convenient fall guy.

If they make ANY noises about "having patents that need to be licenced", Google can ask them for a list. At which point, they face Hobson's choice. Refuse to be specific, and Google sues for a declaration of non-infringement. Be specific, and the patents will be put through the wringer by the community.

Either way, they lose :-) And if MS wins its appeal in the i4i case (you know, the appeal where people like Red Hat wrote an amicus in their favour!), then that Hobson's choice becomes even nastier :-)

Cheers,
Wol

MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

drag — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:49:35 +0000

The only thing they care about is people paying them money. They don't want to work for it so they use the government to extract it out of people.

It's obvious that they would rather have people use formats that require more money.

Somebody else needs to form a patent pool of patents that H.264 violates then sue the shit out of them.