H264 Royalties Just Became a Lot More Uncertain

Jan Ozer September 4, 2018 Codecs Leave a comment 1,236 Views

In his Essential Patent Blog, intellectual property attorney David Long recently reported that a jury trial in Federal District Court in Texas found that Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei infringed upon an H.264-related patent owned by PanOptis, a non-practicing entity (NPE). The jury also found that the H264 award wasn’t limited by FRAND requirements typically applied to patents essential to a standard (FRAND stands for Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory), and awarded PanOptis $7.7 million for a single H.264-related patent. According to Long, this lawsuit may have implications for all users of H.264 encode and decode capabilities, including those distributing H.264-encoded content, and particularly for those shipping Android devices.

Long was kind enough to answer several questions for an article up on Streaming Media Magazine, which also contains my analysis of the impact of this decision (hint: it doesn’t help the adoption of HEVC or future standards-based codecs). 

About Jan Ozer

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I help streaming and video technology companies solve complex technical and market-facing problems in practical business terms. Engagements range from fixed-scope audits and codec strategy reviews to product testing and technical content that helps customers, prospects, and internal teams connect technical performance to business outcomes. I am a contributing editor to Streaming Media Magazine, writing about codecs and encoding tools. I have written multiple authoritative books on video encoding, including Video Encoding by the Numbers: Eliminate the Guesswork from your Streaming Video (https://amzn.to/3kV6R1j) and Learn to Produce Video with FFmpeg: In Thirty Minutes or Less (https://amzn.to/3ZJih7e). I have multiple courses relating to streaming media production, all available at https://bit.ly/slc_courses.

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