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

[David Singer <[e-mail]>]

> On Dec 4, 2014, at 13:56 , Silvia Pfeiffer <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Dec 5, 2014 at 7:52 AM, David Singer <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Dec 4, 2014, at 12:40 , Silvia Pfeiffer <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 5 Dec 2014 07:30, "David Singer" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Dec 4, 2014, at 12:20 , Silvia Pfeiffer <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 5 Dec 2014 06:25, "David Singer" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Dec 3, 2014, at 21:16 , Silvia Pfeiffer <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Indeed, that's why I said point 1. in David's list doesn't make sense, since he's talking about a small company getting sued by Nokia.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> So, your conclusion to my question is “Ship VP8, most of you probably won’t get sued. Good luck.  Try not to be too successful or your luck may change.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes and it's the same answer as for h.264 and h.265 for that matter.
>>>> 
>>>> It is not at all.  Where are the “unwilling to license” statements for H.264?  Where is the VP8 license coverage from the larger players not in the MPEG-LA agreement?
>>>> 
>>>>> Only add to that the extra licence fee you heavy to pay, which is a certainty - the risk of getting sued is uncertain and frankly quite small compared to other risks that you take as a small company.
>>> 
>>> That can very nicely be construed as anticompetitive behaviour I would think in my layman knowledge. It certainly doesn't look like playing fair.
>> 
>> Sorry, I can’t work out what you say is not playing fair?  Using someone else’s patents and assuming that they will give everyone a license?
> 
> "unwilling to license" doesn't seem like they even want to make money
> with their patents. Since that is limited to patents that apply to one
> codec and not to any other codec, I can only interpret that as playing
> unfair. Note that this is my personal opinion and I don't think taking
> this discussion any further is useful in any way. :-)

Got you.  Notwithstanding that I agree that the discussion seems to be due to taper off, and noting that I have no idea what Nokia’s motivation is, I also note that sometimes people offer licenses only in some cases (e.g. for a specific international standard) as a way to try to bring interoperability and convergence to the industry.  “You can use my nice idea only if you implement X in an interoperable fashion”.  I actually think that this is one of the better uses of IPR, as it helps converge into interoperable playing fields.

Of course, when X is not free, this is then problematic for those who prefer free.  I recognize that.


David Singer
Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.