Latest from Next TV in Mpeg-la

Haier Charges Antitrust Collusion in ATSC Licensing

garyarlen@gmail.com (Gary Arlen) — Wed, 30 Aug 2017 16:00:00 +0000

Haier America Trading, the U.S. operating unit of China's Haier Group, a TV and appliance manufacturing company, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Panasonic, Philips, the Columbia University Trust Committee and MPEG LA for "monopolization" of ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) patents and for "conspiracy" to force Haier to pay a higher license fee to use the technology, which is at the core of the digital TV standard used in the U.S., Mexico, Korea and other countries.

Zenith Electronics, LG's U.S. subsidiary which holds patents, is also named in the suit.

The antitrust lawsuit, filed quietly in New York last week, is seen as retribution for the lawsuit filed in March by MPEG LA, the patent pool licensing organization. MPEG LA accused Haier of breaching its agreement to pay the ATSC licensing fees. Haier had deemed the fees ($5 per set) unfair and announced last year that it would cease payments at the end of 2016. The ATSC receiver royalty dropped to as low as $1 in January. Haier claims that the ATSC license fee is "150%-200% higher than comparable technology licenses in Europe."

Haier alleges that the "unreasonable pricing" does not reflect the falling price of ATSC tuners. It also charges that MPEG LA has "attempted to maintain its excessive royalty rate by adding 'broadcasting' patents, which it characterizes as "improper royalty stacking."

Some observers believe that Haier's antitrust lawsuit could mark the beginning of legal battles against its competitors, especially the Korean companies LG and Samsung.

Related: Roku to Keep Haier’s Roku TVs Updated

News of the lawsuit emerged in Korean business publications late last week. Spokesmen and attorneys for all of the companies contacted by Multichannel News, including Haier, LG, Samsung, MPEG LA and ATSC, either declined to comment on the current case or failed to return calls.

The case only deals with the original ATSC digital standard; it does not involve the emerging ATSC 3.0 standard.

In its 48-page complaint and request for a jury trial, Haier contended that patent holders cited in the suit hindered fair competition by colluding with MPEG LA. Industry observers told Multichannel News that they didn't understand why Haier picked on the five organizations that are members of MPEG LA; nine of the member companies have patents on various ATSC features.

Overall, 38 organizations belong to MPEG LA, including CableLabs, Cisco, Apple, Google and Dolby, none of which are involved in Haier's complaint.

Haier had 3.4% worldwide TV set market share in 2016, slightly higher than its 2015 share, according to Statista. By comparison, the global shares for other major TV makers in 2016 was 21.6% for Samsung, 11.9% for LG Electronics and 5.6% for Sony.

“MPEG LA along with LG, Samsung, Philips, Panasonic and other licensors have conspired in restraint of trade to affect, raise, fix, maintain, and stabilize prices in the downstream product market by demanding an excessive, non-FRAND royalty rate for the ATSC standard,” according to Haier's complaint. FRAND refers to Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms in a voluntary licensing commitment, often used by standards organizations in patent licensing.

In its suit, Haier claims that it "attempted to negotiate license agreements ... on FRAND terms" with Samsung and LG, both of which said that it must obtain licensing from MPEG LA.

Related: MPEG LA Looking to Fill ATSC 3.0 Patent Pool

Among the 12 claims that Haier makes in its filing -- some directed at all of the defendants, others aimed at only two or three of the patent holders -- are charges of restraint of trade, nonessential patent misuse, expiration dates for the licenses and breach of "good faith and fair dealing."

Haier said it "will suffer irreparable injury" because of the alleged antitrust discrimination and asked the court for "treble damages" of the amount "to be proven at trial" for the defendants' actions.

There is no timetable for the new filing or for the MPEG LA's March suit against Haier.

MPEG LA Looking to Fill ATSC 3.0 Patent Pool

Jeff Baumgartner — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 19:08:00 +0000

MPEG LA jumped into the ATSC 3.0 mix by announcing a call for patents that are “essential” to the next-gen TV transmission standard that will blend over-the-air and broadband capabilities, support mobile devices and 4K and other new formats.

MPEG LA said the call for patents is a “first step in creating a one-stop license” for ATSC 3.0. Parties that believe they have patents that are essential to the 3.0 standards have until Sept. 8, 2017 to submit them.

MPEG LA has created similar patent pools for standards such as EVS (Enhanced Voice Services), HEVC, DASH, MPEG-2, and AVC/H.264), as well as earlier versions of ATSC.

MPEG LA said it recognizes that the ATSC 3.0 standards were developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), a group that MPEG LA isn’t affiliated with, but holds that the call for patents aims to “facilitate creation of a joint license is in response to market interest in a convenient licensing alternative.”

“ATSC 3.0 represents a significant technological leap over current ATSC broadcast standards, developed some 20 years ago,” Larry Horn, president and CEO of MPEG LA, said in a statement. “MPEG LA is pleased to begin the process of creating an efficient one-stop license offering access to key intellectual property rights that will help make ATSC 3.0’s benefits available to consumers without delay.”

Next-Gen Video Alliance Challenges Widely-Used Streaming Technology

garyarlen@gmail.com (Gary Arlen) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 22:00:00 +0000

The newly formed Alliance for Open Media -- a collaboration of seven major Internet and software companies -- will develop video streaming formats, codecs and other technologies that are intended to shake up existing systems used across platforms and networks.

One initial goal of the Alliance is to build "a next-generation royalty-free video codec." That's a way of bypassing the licensing fees that MPEG LA collects on behalf of its 35 patent-holding members, which include Apple, Cable Television Laboratories, Cisco Technology, Microsoft, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony.

Members of the new alliance are Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix. Matt Frost, a Google executive and spokesman for the new group, said other organizations -- possibly including communications carriers that carry streamed programming -- are examining the new plan.

"We've seen recent interest in open video from those industry segments, so we wouldn't be surprised if carriers explored membership in the Alliance for Open Media," Frost told Multichannel News.

Alliance members are spurred by the need for advanced codecs with better compression rates as resolution and frame-rates increase on streaming video platforms. By developing a new open format, the member companies could leapfrog over the widely-used Adobe Flash standard. Flash doesn't require extensive computer power, and it is considered insufficient for safeguarding copyrighted content; it is being blocked on many platforms.

The new group's initial focus on royalty-free content encryption underscores the members' objective to assure content producers their delivery systems are "safe." To obtain programming licensing rights, streaming packagers such as Netflix, Amazon and Google (via its YouTube subsidiary) must convince content creators that their systems are sufficiently encrypted.

Establishing -- and optimizing -- a single codec is seen as vital; multiple video patents raise impediments to the streaming purveyors. The Alliance surfaced just as another collaborative venture, HEVC Advance LLC is struggling to launch its next patent-protected system that promises to handle 4K UHD video. MPEG LA collects the patent licensing fees for the current HEVC AVC/H.264 codec technology.

The alliance's first project will create a new, open, royalty-free video codec specification, along with binding specifications for media format, content encryption and adaptive streaming, thereby creating opportunities for next-generation media experiences. The codec is expected to be based on existing royalty-free projects that several of the founding members have been developing, such as Cisco's "Thor," Mozilla's "Daala" and Google's "VP9" and "VP10."

The new software will be optimized for the Web, scalable to any modern device at any bandwidth and "designed with a low computational footprint and optimized for hardware," according to the alliance.

Significantly a major objective of the alliance is to make the software "capable of consistent, highest-quality, real-time video delivery," indicating the video content packager's potential intent to transmit live programming. The codec is also expected to be adaptable to both commercial and non-commercial content, including user-generated content.

“Customer expectations for media delivery continue to grow, and fulfilling their expectations requires the concerted energy of the entire ecosystem,” said Gabe Frost, executive director of the alliance, in a statement.

Notably absent from the alliance's roster of streaming video-oriented content packagers is Apple, which is currently a member of MPEG LA and which unveiled its latest feature-laden Apple TV product a few days after the alliance's debut. Facebook, which is also beefing up its video delivery options, was another no-show at the alliance's first member meeting.

In its announcement, the new alliance stresses the planned collaboration of codec development by its member companies. Yet analysts point out that several of the powerful member companies may push to have their own technology adopted, which could lead to quarrels and delays for the new codecs and encryption plans.

Although the Alliance for Open Media has not yet laid out its development timetable, Jonathan Khazam, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Visual & Parallel Computing group, summed up the group's perceived necessity.

"The alliance’s open framework will enable ... members to help usher in the next generation of video-oriented experiences that combine higher quality with lower delivery costs," Khazam said.

Those sound like competitive words!