Vectis IP, a company specializing in intellectual property management, has announced the formation of a patent pool for licensing technologies used in the free audio codec Opus. Ten years ago, Opus was standardized (RFC 6716) by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) as an audio codec for internet applications that does not require royalty payments and does not overlap with patented technologies. Vectis IP intends to change the licensing status of this codec and has begun accepting applications from companies that hold patents overlapping with Opus technologies.
After forming the patent pool, the collection of royalties is planned to focus on manufacturers of hardware devices supporting Opus. Licensing will not affect open implementations of the codec, applications, services, and content distribution. The first patent holders to join the initiative were Fraunhofer and Dolby. It is expected that in the coming months a pool of over a hundred patents will be established and manufacturers will be offered to license the use of the Opus codec in their devices. The royalty amount will be 15-12 euro cents per device.
It is noted that in addition to the Opus format, Vectis IP is simultaneously working on forming patent pools that cover other technologies related to image and video encoding, communications, e-commerce, and computer networks.
The Opus codec was created by combining the best technologies from the CELT codec developed by the Xiph.org organization and the SILK codec made open by Skype. In addition to Skype and Xiph.org, companies such as Mozilla, Octasic, Broadcom, and Google also participated in the development of Opus. Opus is distinguished by its high encoding quality and minimal latency both in compressing high-bitrate streaming audio and in compressing voice in bandwidth-constrained VoIP applications. Previously, Opus was recognized as the best codec when using a bitrate of 64 kbit (Opus outperformed competitors such as Apple HE-AAC, Nero HE-AAC, Vorbis, and AAC LC). The reference implementations of the Opus encoder and decoder are distributed under a BSD license. Full specifications of the format are publicly available, free, and approved as an internet standard.
All patents used in Opus are provided by the participating companies for unlimited use without any royalty payments — patents are automatically delegated for use by Opus applications and products, without needing additional agreements. There are no restrictions on the scope of use or the creation of alternative third-party implementations. However, all granted rights are revoked in the event of initiating patent litigation related to Opus technologies against any Opus user. Vectis IP’s activities focus on finding patents that intersect with Opus but do not belong to the companies that originally participated in its development, standardization, and promotion.
Source: opennet.ru
