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MPEG-4 Systems Essential Patent Holders Meet to Develop a Joint License (Denver, Colorado, US - 1 November 2001) - The MPEG-4 Systems Essential Patent Holders Group (M4SystemsPHG) consisting of six essential patent holders met for the first time on September 10, 2001. MPEG LA®, which acts as group facilitator, convened the meeting following an independent patent expert's finding that each of the six companies owns one or more patents essential to the international MPEG-4 Systems Standard. The group's objective is to develop a one-stop license providing fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory worldwide access to this essential intellectual property in order to foster widespread implementation, interoperability and use of this important technology. A second meeting was held October 30, 2001. The M4SystemsPHG's objective is to include as much essential MPEG-4 Systems intellectual property as possible in a one-stop license. Therefore, any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the "MPEG-4 Systems Standard" (ISO/IEC 14496-1 Information technology - Coding of audio-visual objects - Part 1: Systems, including ISO/IEC 14496-1, ISO/IEC 14496-1/Amd.1, ISO/IEC 14496-1/Amd.2 and ISO/IEC 14496-1/COR1)) and wishes to join upon successful evaluation, is invited to submit such patents to the independent Patent Evaluator together with a statement confirming its agreement with the objectives and intention to abide by terms and procedures governing the patent submission process, which may be obtained from Lawrence A. Horn, Vice President, Licensing and Business Development, MPEG LA, LLC (lhorn@mpegla.com, phone 1-301-986-6660, fax 1-301-986-8575). # # # MPEG LA, LLC MPEG LA® successfully pioneered one-stop technology standards licensing, starting with a portfolio of essential patents for the international digital video compression standard known as MPEG-2, which it began licensing in 1997. One-stop technology standards licensing enables widespread technological implementation, interoperability and use of fundamental broad-based technologies covered by many patents owned by many different patent holders. MPEG LA® provides users with fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to these essential patents on a worldwide basis under a single license. The MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License now has more than 340 licensees and includes almost 400 MPEG-2 essential patents owned by 19 patent holders. As the legal and business template for one-stop technology standards licensing, MPEG LA® also provides an innovative way to achieve fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to patent rights for other technology standards - the high-speed transfer digital interconnect standard known as IEEE 1394 and the terrestrial digital television standard used in Europe and Asia known as DVB-T. In addition, MPEG LAŽ has been asked to facilitate the development of joint licenses for MPEG-4 and other emerging technologies. The company is based in Denver, CO and has offices in Chevy Chase, MD (Washington DC metropolitan area), the greater San Francisco area and London, England. For more information, please refer to http://www.mpegla.com, http://www.1394la.com and http://www.dvbla.com. |
