Re: [rtcweb] VP8 litigation in Germany?

Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org> Sun, 10 March 2013 18:32 UTC

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From: Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org>
To: Ted Hardie <ted.ietf@gmail.com>
Thread-Topic: [rtcweb] VP8 litigation in Germany?
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Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:32:41 +0000
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Subject: Re: [rtcweb] VP8 litigation in Germany?
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Hi Ted,

On 3.10.2013 11:19 , "Ted Hardie" <ted.ietf@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 9:31 PM, Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org> wrote:
>> One other data point: Mr. Mueller is correct in that Nokia is not a
>>member
>> of the H.264 pool.  Nor are they members in any other video coding
>>related
>> patent pool that I'm aware of, despite IMO having one of the strongest
>>video
>> coding research teams in the industry (I was part of that myself, a
>>while
>> ago).
>
>Hi Stephan,
>
>So, this seems to me to imply that any Nokia IPR on either H.264 or
>VP8 is not part of any established patent pool and thus is not
>publicly in the "market" of which you have previously spoken.  If that
>is the case, it would seem to be an equally unknown factor for an
>implementer of either.   To put this slightly different, even if Mr.
>Mueller were correct, the additional context seems to result in this
>being null data for our particular working group decision.

No, I don't think that this is correct, for at least two reasons.

First, if we were adopting a tit for tat approach, I could argue that this
lawsuit counterbalances the H.264 related lawsuit(s) (there is only one
critical left AFAIR, which is Motorola/Microsoft) that has created so much
noise here in the past.  You can get sued over H.264 (interlace
frame/field adaptivity for example), but you can equally get sued over VP8
(motion vector coding technology for example, if I remember correctly).

Second, remember that H.264 is a RAND standard and Nokia is undoubtedly
bound to their RAND commitment to the ITU.  Insofar, I very much doubt
that they could get away with charging non-RAND rates or doing other
unpleasant things.  For VP8, as not being a standard under RAND, there is
no such a restricting framework in place, AFAIK.

The second aspect may make little difference to those whose business model
discourages them from paying royalties (which I do not consider a
sustainable business model in this field, however, others have other
opinions including a few folks who know their stuff in this field).
However, the first aspect does.

>
>regards,
>
>Ted Hardie
>