This is taken from article linked on V-Chip news site. Looks like the predictions of fellow threaders is true. FCC doesn't want only one player,
"People have been coming out of the woodwork
with patents related to this technology," said
Michael Petricone, deputy general counsel for
the Computer & Electronics Marketing
Association.
But the FCC never intended one company to be
in a position to control the terms of all
implementations of V-chip technology, Petricone
said. The FCC said two things: it approved
open standards for the broadcasters' ratings
system, and for the way the data is to be
transmitted -- namely, in line 21 of the vertical
blanking interval, where closed captioning
information is sent.
"You have to transmit according to transmission
standards and you have to block according to
the ratings system," Petricone said. "What
happens in the middle is up to the set
manufacturer."
The FCC did not mandate how a set has to
receive the ratings information and to actually
block certain programming, Petricone said, and
that can be done in numerous ways.
The FCC said in its approval of the V-chip
technology standards: "We recognize the
possibility of existing patents, but we find that
this does not inherently conflict with the rules
adopted in this proceeding since no evidence
has been presented of unreasonable royalty or
licensing policies. At this time, we intend to
allow the market to decide or innovate which
implementation technologies will be used." |
