In a press release issued in San Francisco yesterday, Via Licensing
Corporation announced the availability of financial license terms for
patents essential for implementations of the MHP 1.0 and OCAP™ 1.0
standards. Joint patent licenses are expected to be available by Q4
this year.
The full text of the release is as follows:
San Francisco, July 13, 2005—Via Licensing
Corporation is pleased to announce the availability of financial
license terms for patents essential for implementations of the Digital
Video Broadcasting Multimedia Home Platform 1.0 (MHP 1.0), and CableLabs®
OpenCable™ Applications Platform (OCAP™ 1.0) standards. Companies
participating in meetings with Via Licensing regarding each technology
standard licensing program have each had patents independently
determined to be essential to the implementation of that standard.
The patent licenses for MHP 1.0 and OCAP 1.0
will be offered separately and will better enable and encourage
adoption of the standards by streamlining the process and reducing the
overall cost of obtaining the necessary licenses for both device
manufacturers and service providers. Patent holders including Comcast,
OpenTV, Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.), Royal
Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Thomson, and Time Warner
Cable are currently discussing the final license documents.
The financial terms are available at www.vialicensing.com
under the Licensing Programs menu. The goal of the participating
companies is to have a patent license agreement available to interested
device manufacturers and service providers by the end of the fourth
quarter of 2005. Device manufacturers and service providers are each
required to obtain separate patent licenses from the pool, with
manufacturers making payments based on the number of devices
manufactured and service providers making payments based on the number
of subscribers that their service reaches.
The marketplace benefits from the
participation of as many patent owners as possible, through the
inclusion of more intellectual property in the license and by the
participation of more parties in development of the terms of the
licensing program. Via Licensing continues to welcome the participation
of additional parties that hold patents essential to the practice of
the MHP 1.0 (ETSI TS101812) or OCAP 1.0 (SCTE OC-SP-OCAP1.0) standards.
Parties holding patents they believe are necessarily infringed by the
practice of these standards, and who are interested in participating in
the development of the licensing program, should immediately request
information by sending an email to submissions@vialicensing.com.
The license fees collected from the MHP and
OCAP licensing programs will be allocated among the pool members based
upon a predetermined formula approved by all pool members.
Media Contact:
Adam Anderson
+1 415 645 5176
adam.a@vialicensing.com
