Re: [rtcweb] Finishing up the Video Codec document, MTI (again, still, sorry)

["Timothy B. Terriberry" <[e-mail]>]

Roman Shpount wrote:
> Actually Google does grant patent license to the implementation of WebM,
> which includes both encoder and decoder
> (http://www.webmproject.org/license/additional/) This is one of the
> reasons we think VP8 license is better then H.264. (The other two are
> reciprocity and no use restrictions on the produced media).

Serge also confirmed on this list that that license applies to 
third-party implementations as well: 
https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg04006.html

The Opus licenses similarly grant rights to patents that read on the 
reference implementation, including the encoder, even if used in a 
third-party implementation.

Now, it's certainly possible to infringe other people's IPR by 
implementing an encoder sufficiently different from the reference 
encoder. One must be very careful when doing that. But these reference 
implementations are production-grade. Anyone who merely wishes to deploy 
a codec has an implementation they can use with just as much assurance 
of the IPR safety of the encoder as they have of the decoder.