Via offering joint patent license for AVC video standard

Via Licensing Corp. has announced it would make available a joint license for patents that are essential to implement the joint ISO/IEC and ITU video coding standard.

Patent licenses that are essential to the AVC Standard owned by 8x8 Inc., British Telecommunications plc., Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp., Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Forderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., and UB Video Inc. are offered through the program.

The joint patent license contains a provision that waives royalties for practice of the AVC standard for the period prior to Dec. 31, 2004, for companies who become licensees on or before May 27, 2005.

ITU-T Rec. H.264 and ISO/IEC 14496-10 are jointly developed specifications for AVC, the next-generation open-standard video compression technology. AVC provides greatly enhanced compression performance and is suited to a broad range of applications, including video telephony, Internet protocol streaming, gaming, high-definition DVD, mobile device broadcast, and compressed personal video recording, among many others.

AVC is estimated to be two to three times more efficient than the widely deployed MPEG-2 video codec.

Companies that produce end-user products that practice the AVC Standard should visit Via's website to learn more about the joint patent license and to request a sample agreement for review.

- Spencer Chin

EE Times