Re: [rtcweb] VP8 litigation in Germany?

Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org> Sun, 10 March 2013 19:19 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 19:19:25 +0000
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Subject: Re: [rtcweb] VP8 litigation in Germany?
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Hi Ted,

On 3.10.2013 11:50 , "Ted Hardie" <ted.ietf@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Stephan Wenger <stewe@stewe.org> wrote:
>>
>> 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).
>>
>
>I think I must be missing the disagreement here--I read your recent
>note to say that the existence of patents (in this case, Nokia's)
>outside the pool was possible for both H.264 and VP8.  Your response
>seems to be "this is true for others as well", which doesn't seem to
>change the conclusion.

The only thing I tried to say above is that, in the past, folks called it
a plus for VP8 that no one has litigated against a VP8 user, whereas there
were known lawsuits against H.264 users.  That argument is gone.  Both
specs (or, better, patent claims allegedly related to those specs) are
subject to lawsuits.  No change the WG needs to think about?  Come on...

>
>> 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.
>>
>
>A potential non-RAND response seems to be entirely a supposition; you
>could equally suppose that they would make their licenses royalty
>free, should they have any applicable to VP8, based on the PR value of
>contributing to the existence of a more vibrant ecosystem.

Risk assessment necessarily deals with probabilities.  How high is the
chance that an aggressive IP enforcer would ask for non RAND terms
(billions in royalty, injunction, whatnot), RAND terms, or give in for
good, when litigation has been initiated and the IP enforcer is not bound
to RAND terms?  Rhetoric question.

You are, of course, absolutely right that potentially a lot of
rightholders are willing to hold still or settle for less money than
possible, so not to damage the ecosystem, relationship with google, and so
on.  The fact that google got a sublicenseable license--almost unheard of
in the pool business and certainly not MPEG-LA's common business
model--speaks for the second and potentially the third point.  However,
remember the context of this email: did the lawsuit in Germany change
anything?  Well, to me, it clearly indicates that "PR value of
contributing to the existence of a more vibrant ecosystem" didn't work all
that well in this case...  and, while I have not read the prayers of the
Nokia complaint, I can easily imagine what they request, and it's not
recognition for contributing to a vibrant ecosystem :-)

Stephan

>
>regards,
>
>Ted
>