Fostering of Patent Pools Covering Cable Technology : Lessons from VVC Pool Fostering

Patent pools are increasingly well known as a mechanism to license patents essential to a technical standard. CableLabs had early experience when it launched in the mid-1990s the first modern day pool covering MPEG2-essential video codec patents. Recently, the fractured licensing environment for the video codec HEVC brought many industry players to look for greater clarity for licensing of the newly adopted ISO/IEC MPEG video codec, Versatile Video Coding (VVC). Earlier this year, the Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) completed its fostering of pool formation covering VVC-essential patents.MC-IF’s sponsorship of pool fostering was based in part on the experience of the DVB Project in fostering pools essential to DVB standards. MC-IF scaled DVB’s process to meet the challenges of the VVC patent environment: dozens of holders with diverse business models drawn from the audiovisual industry, but also from other widely divergent industries. Some based their revenues wholly on collection of royalties; others largely on sales of devices and services (while owning one or more VVC-essential patents). After providing background to DVB’s success in pool fostering, the paper explains the process adopted by VVC Pool Fostering; the steps used to broaden participation and encourage engagement; and the final outcome of pool fostering for VVC-essential patents. While VVC Pool Fostering did not achieve a goal shared by many participants – the selection of a single licensing administrator to complete VVC pool formation – it confirmed pool fostering as a useful tool “to kickstart” licensing of newly adopted standards. The paper draws upon the experience of the two convenors of VVC Pool Fostering. The paper compares the patent pool model with the licensing regimes covering other video codecs contending today for broad industry adoption. Pool fostering described in this paper is available for different technologies implemented by cable operators or used in cable households: standardised technologies adopted in TV receivers (such as video codecs) and set top boxes, audiovisual transmission and general telecommunications protocols; etc