MPEG LA works on a VC-9 (aka WMV9) license - some questions

MPEG LA (which also handles the licenses of the well known MPEG formats (like MPEG-2/4) announced a plan for providing a license for "Proposed Standard VC-9 Submitted to SMPTE Technology Committee C24" (2004-03-19), aka "Proposed SMPTE Standard for Television: VC-9 Compressed Video Bitstream Format and Decoding Process", aka Windows Media Video 9 (WMV9) The first step calls for those with patents that they believe are essential to the VC-9 Specification to submit them for an evaluation of essentiality by independent patent experts. An initial group of patent holders whose patents are determined to be essential will be convened within 30-45 days to begin considering terms of a joint license, but the process will remain open and submissions will continue to be welcome. read more ok this call for other parties, which maybe are holding patents on wmv9 raises some legal questions for me: 1) did m$ (have to) pay those other patents holders already to be able to use and sell products using their technology legally? 2) if not, was this legal? i mean "inventing" a new closed spec format and doing as you "simply dont know" that others own patents already on your format and therefore also dont pay them? 3) what does this mean for users using wmv9 already commercially (or offering wmv9 content)? will they from now on have to pay for a license from mpeg la (as wmv9 = vc-9)? again were they using wmv9 legally till now? 4) (how) will m$ have the right to offer wmv9 tools from now on, without having to pay for the vc-9 license? ok, if m$ is the only patent holder on vc-9/wmv9 the situation is pretty clear, cause than only m$ can/could cash in anyways (no matter if the licenses run over mpegla or m$ directly) and this call for patents is only for appearance's sake but if micro$oft is not the only patent holder on the vc-9/wmv9 technology things are not so clear for me how do you guys see that (legal) situation?

Everything obvious is covered by a patent, everything obvious and remotely usefull is patented multiple times. Even if there are patents which seem to cover the technology that means very little, only a courtcase can determine infringement. They probably have a decent amount of cross licensing deals, and also I assume m$ covered their but well enough to be able to claim non willfull infringement even if they did have to go to court (less damages to pay, but they would still be hostage to the patent owner if they were deemed to infringe). The MPEG-LA is probably fearfull of it's MPEG-4/H.264 patent-pool revenue, and are using this as an attack on the legitamacy of Microsoft's standard. If it comes to a courtcase they might even subsidize the suit. It seems to be designed as a push in the back for companies to take on Microsoft, and as a way to scare off potential licensees away from Microsoft and towards MPEG-4/H.264. Going up against Microsoft is dangerous though, they will probably be able to bully any patent owners into relatively low fees. Better than getting your patent overturned in court, of which there is always a chance, for most companies.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time MS walked all over someone else's IP rights, and it wouldn't be the last either. MS is ALWAYS in court because of some bit of shady business. You may or may not remember when Apple sued MS for stealing QuickTime code. MS managed to blame a subcontractor and got off with a small fine. It therefore wouldn't surprise you that another company is currently suing MS claiming that WMP9 was stolen from them. MS currently has more than 20 cases pending against them, and as many as 50 in the works. Since the DOJ doesn't seem to be willing to punish them, MS is all hot to see how far they can push the bounds of illegal activity.

They are a rich target and there are lots of gold diggers. With quicktime/DCI it was clearly the subcontractor who did it, and Intel licensed it from them ... and Microsoft licensed it from Intel. Now who put who up to what is open for debate, but I kinda doubt any high level management in microsoft was involved. It wouldnt have been that much work for them to reverse engineer it and implement it themselves.

The whole thing opens up a can of worms that will probably add a long delay to VC-9 standardization and probably greatly reduce the desirability of its license terms. Heck, the MPEG-LA is still going round and round with MPEG-4. - Tom