Re: [rtcweb] VP8 IPR agreement announced.

Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no> Sat, 09 March 2013 10:08 UTC

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Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:08:29 +0100
From: Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>
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Subject: Re: [rtcweb] VP8 IPR agreement announced.
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On 03/08/2013 09:14 PM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> Hi Serge,
>
> This is a great development for VP8.  Congratulations.  I'm sure it 
> took a few cycles and dollars to get something like this arranged.  I 
> wish your PR would have come out a bit earlier, but licensing 
> discussions do take time...  So better now than never.
>
> I want to ask two more pieces of information that would allow me to 
> put this announcement into context.
>
> First, who are those 11 rightholders?  I'm sure you agree that, in 
> order to make a meaningful risk assessment, that information is needed.

Stephan, at the moment, we have no agreement with the rightsholders that 
permits us to disclose their names. We're discussing that topic with 
them, but we will not name them without an agreement to do so.

Of course, the rightsholders are free to disclose themselves.
>
> Second, the link provided to "preview" the possible sublicensing terms 
> (http://www.w3.org/2001/07/SVG10-IPR-statements) lists a bunch of 
> company statements that vary widely among the rightholders listed 
> there, which do not include google.  It would be great if you could 
> provide more specific information as early as possible, especially 
> with respect to the essential claims definition and the reciprocity 
> conditions.  That does not have to be final legal text, but should be 
> a clear indication of your business intentions.  To me, term-sheet 
> level is OK.

That link was a bit weird - the real W3C definition of "royalty-free" is 
http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/#sec-Requirements - 
I think the intent of the link was that if you don't find any of the RF 
terms listed on that page objectionable, you'll not find the Google RF 
terms objectionable either.