Where is the MPEG-LA patent pool for WebM? As far as I can tell this has just been a hollow announcement, but MPEG-LA have not been able to set up such a patent pool yet. Maybe it's because there aren't any patents out there that are being infringed? Unfortunately, the non-existence of infringing patents can never be proven and this situation is therefore always open to creating fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Also note that going through an actual standardisation process and becoming part of a license pool by MPEG-LA doesn't actually protect you from lawsuits for patent infringement, see e.g.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/74186,apple-samsung-and-sandisk-hit-by-mp3-patent-claim.aspx

MPEG-LA patent pools are only there to protect you from lawsuits of patents that are being made available through the pool. The pool is not an insurance against patent infringement lawsuits - not even from those that have joined the patent pool, as the law suit of Lucent against MicroSoft has taught us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel-Lucent_v._Microsoft

As said before: IPR issues are not a good decision factor on which to select a codec for common use. Royalty-free is important. And the rest should be based on technical merit.

Regards,
Silvia.


On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 10:46 PM, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
I have to agree.  If IPR issues are what we want to avoid, VP8 seems like a poor choice (e.g. <http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/mpeg-la-looking-at-patents-for-googles-vp8webm-video/>).

On Dec 21, 2010, at 13:38 , markus.isomaki@nokia.com wrote:

Hi Peter, all,
 
About the video codec: Are there any arguments on why VP8 would not have IPR issues? It is available as an open source implementation, but that does not mean there are no IPR against it. My understanding is that the IPR situation wrt. VP8 is still unclear and thus risky. The other issue with VP8 is, as far as I know, the lack of a clear spec out of which independent interoperable implementations can be created.
 
So I don’t at least buy the argument that we should choose VP8 as mandatory to implement video codec because of IPR reasons.
 
I’m working on a separate review on Harald’s drafts (thanks for putting them together) and will come back to the codec issue there in more detail, but just wanted to respond to Peter’s point here.
 
Regards,
                Markus
 
From: dispatch-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:dispatch-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of ext Peter Musgrave
Sent: 17 December, 2010 13:48
To: Harald Alvestrand
Cc: rtc-web@alvestrand.no; dispatch@ietf.org; Ted Hardie
Subject: Re: [dispatch] Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-alvestrand-dispatch-rtcweb-protocols-00
 
I'd also like to echo Alan's thanks for these drafts. 
 
The protocol doc is very clear. [If you read only one dispatch draft this Christmas, make it this one. ;-)  ]
 
One observation to the group. The mandatory to implement video CODEC is VP8 (presumably since it does not have IPR issues - which some other choices would have). 
 
Regards, 
 
Peter Musgrave
 
 
Nits
Introduction
s/veichle/vehicle/
 
Section 2 Para "Within each.."
s/implementaiton/implementation/
 
Section 4 Para1
"such as" (something missing here?)
 
Section 5 Para2
"There is no third mandatory to implement" 
? Was there a mention of a third before. Not sure why this statement is there.
 
 
On 2010-11-10, at 6:34 AM, Harald Alvestrand wrote:


This is the overview document for the IETF-related RTC-WEB work.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:
New Version Notification for draft-alvestrand-dispatch-rtcweb-protocols-00
Date:
Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:31:05 -0800 (PST)
From:
IETF I-D Submission Tool <idsubmission@ietf.org>
To:

 


A new version of I-D, draft-alvestrand-dispatch-rtcweb-protocols-00.txt has been successfully submitted by Harald Alvestrand and posted to the IETF repository.

 
Filename:      draft-alvestrand-dispatch-rtcweb-protocols

Revision:      00
Title:         Overview: Real Time Protocols for Brower-based Applications

Creation_date:  2010-11-11
WG ID:         Independent Submission

Number_of_pages: 9
 
Abstract:
This document gives an overview of a protocol suite intended for use

with real-time applications that can be deployed in browsers - "real
time communication on the Web".

 
It intends to serve as a starting and coordination point to make sure

all the parts that are needed to achieve this goal are findable, and
that the parts that belong in the Internet protocol suite are fully
specified and on the right publication track.

 
This work is an attempt to synthesize the input of many people, but

makes no claims to fully represent the views of any of them.  All
parts of the document should be regarded as open for discussion.
                                                                                  

 
 
The IETF Secretariat.
 
 

 
_______________________________________________
dispatch mailing list
dispatch@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch
 
_______________________________________________
dispatch mailing list
dispatch@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.


_______________________________________________
RTC-Web mailing list
RTC-Web@alvestrand.no
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/rtc-web