The M4VisualPHG, which currently consists of 19 essential patent holders, continues to make substantial progress toward its goal of offering a one-stop license providing fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory worldwide access to MPEG-4 Visual (Simple and Core) essential intellectual property by January 2002. The group met most recently on September 11, 12 and 13 and plans to meet again in December 2001. MPEG LA® first convened the M4VisualPHG in December 2000 following an independent patent expert's finding that each of the 19 companies owns one or more patents essential to the international MPEG-4 Visual Standard; meetings also were held in March and June, 2001; and of course, work continues between meetings.

The M4VisualPHG is driven by the desire to assure that its licensing model will be responsive to the marketplace and aligned with the real-world flow of MPEG-4 commerce. Among the considerations in coming up with a fair, reasonable nondiscriminatory license are a need for simplicity, a desire to promote the widest possible use of MPEG-4, maximizing the opportunity for full efficient compliance with intellectual property licensing requirements and recognition of the likely business models (including both hardware and software) for deploying MPEG-4 Visual Standard technology. While its effort to develop a joint license remains on track, the M4VisualPHG continues to urge patience and understanding in view of the ambitious challenge posed by the effort to produce a joint licensing program for the benefit of the marketplace involving at least 19 different patent holders and the yet undetermined future implemenaions and applications of the emerging MPEG-4 market.

M4VisualPHG's objective is to include as much essential MPEG-4 Visual (Simple and Core) intellectual property as possible in a one-stop license for the convenience of the marketplace. Therefore, any party that believes it has essential patents (Sections 9, 9.1 and 9.2 and Tables 9-1 and 9-2 of ISO/IEC 14496-2 Information Technology - Coding of Audio-Visual Objects - Part 2: Visual) 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).