Comprehensive Empirical Study on Multiple SSO IPR Policy Revisions Shows No Effect On Participation

In a new study by Boston University’s Timothy Simcoe and Qing Zhang from Charles River Associates (using support from Unified’s OPEN platform and Edge / Patent Quality Initiative), the pair researched the impact of changes to Standard Setting Organization (SSO) intellectual property rights (IPR) policies on participation, standardization, and innovation for two well-known IPR policy revisions: a 2003 World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) switch from Fair Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) to Royalty-Free licensing and a 2015 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) IPR policy revision. The study found these changes resulted in little or no measurable decline in participation or innovation in patent-intensive parts of either SSO. The results held for both the W3C and IEEE across numerous measures and “treatment” vs “control” group comparisons. These quantitative findings appear to contradict the theory that revisions to licensing policy alter participation in any meaningful way.

To download the entire article, visit SSRN HERE.

VVC royalty report by Charles River Assoc. estimates lower rates due to AV1 adoption

Unified is pleased to announce the release of a new economic royalty rate report estimating the aggregate royalty burden for all standard-essential patents (SEPs) covering the video codec standard H.266, also called Versatile Video Coding (VVC). The report is a part of Unified’s Video Codec Zone, the goal of which is to provide objective, independent evidence of reasonable royalty rates, thus refuting unsubstantiated SEP licensing demands. 

VVC (H.266) constitutes the latest installment in a series of video codec standards released by the ITU and ISO/IEC and is regarded as the direct successor to HEVC (also H.265).

The fragmented licensing landscape for HEVC with three different patent pools has resulted in a significant degree of uncertainty about HEVC’s licensing terms and very high aggregate royalties. The issues revolving around its licensing have not only significantly hampered HEVC’s adoption but also likely have further boosted the significant momentum around royalty free video codecs like AV1. Against this background, the future uptake of VVC will strongly depend on whether the VVC SEP holders will be able to set clear and transparent licensing terms and royalties that are not excessive, but FRAND. VVC’s estimated FRAND royalty rates range from $0.05 for cellular devices to $0.17 for streaming devices.

In addition, AV1, often considered equivalent to HEVC, is already being implemented in many recent TVs. As adoption of alternative codecs increases, the value of VVC decreases. In this case, AV1 adoption lowers the cellular FRAND rate of VVC 40% to $0.03.

Read the executive summary below. Members of Unified's Video Codec Zone receive a full copy of this economic report. Email info@unifiedpatents.com for more info.

VVC Report - Public by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd