MPEG LA questions and answers...............
BASICS ABOUT MPEG
Q: What is MPEG?
A: MPEG stands for Moving Picture
Experts Group. MPEG is a working group
convened under the joint supervision of
the International Standards Organization
(ISO) and the International
Electro-technical Commission (IEC).
MPEG is officially working group 11.
MPEG's mandate is to develop standards
for coded representation of moving
pictures and associated audio and other
information. As such, it is an international
standards process aimed at achieving a
standard which specifies the coded
bitstream and decoder requirements for
high quality digital video and associated
audio. This includes multiplexing multiple
video, audio, and program information
streams for transport or storage.
Q: What is the history of MPEG?
A: MPEG was formed in 1988 during a
meeting of the International Organization
for Standards (ISO) and the International
Telecommunications Union (IEC). The
MPEG process of formulating an industry
standard for the compression technology
evolved over several years, with a growing
number of industry representatives joining
in the discussion as applications for the
proposed MPEG-2 standard grew.
Q: What is MPEG-2?
A: MPEG-2 is a broad and open standard
relating to digital video compression which
provides a technique for eliminating
redundan official ISO/IEC standards.
Q: What is the MPEG IPR Working
Group?
A: The MPEG IPR (intellectual property
rights) Working Group was a committee
made up of representatives of companies
with MPEG-2 essential patents that were
committed to creating fair, reasonable,
nondiscriminatory access to the intellectual
property essential for the implementation
of the MPEG-2 technology. The
committee members were Columbia
University; Fujitsu Limited; General
Instrument Corporation; Lucent
Technologies, Inc.; Matsushita Electric
Industrial Co., Ltd.; Mitsubishi Electric
Corporation, Philips Electronics N.V.;
Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and Sony
Corporation. The Group was established
in 1994 based upon work begun within
the MPEG standard setting process in
1992. The Group had the blessing of
MPEG and was chaired by Mr. Futa. The
group established the following as the
mission to be achieved by the
establishment of a licensing entity: To
foster fair, reasonable, and
nondiscriminatory access to as much
relevant IPR as is possible for the
implementation of digital television.
THE MARKET PLACE
Q: What makes MPEG-2 the standard of
choice in compression technology?
A: There are alternative compression
technologies available, but we are
unaware of any single technology
incorporating the breadth of MPEG-2's
reach into consumer, computer and
communications products. In light of the
need for interoperability and compatibility,
a standard that is widely accepted by the
industry is to everyone's advantage.
Q: How soon will manufacturers start
developing products solely based on the
new compression technology and the
MPEG-2 standard?
A: They already started with products
such as DSS (Digital
Satellite-broadcasting Service) , DVB
(Digital Video Broadcasting) and DVD
(Digital Versatile Disk) all MPEG-2
based.
Q: How many licensees do you expect?
A: Given the marketplace acceptance of
the MPEG-2 standard, we anticipate
many licensees.
Q: As a manufacturer, what are the
distinct advantages of purchasing a license
from MPEG LA? Are there comparable
alternatives?
A: There are no comparable entities to
MPEG LA offering a wide range of
relevant patents in a single portfolio as a
cost-efficient and effective way to access
MPEG-2 related technology or probably
for that matter for any other standard. The
availability of this license is unique in the
marketplace.
Q: What do you see as the
pro-competitive effects of patent pooling?
A: When done properly as we have with
MPEG-2, it can reduce the uncertainty of
the availability of patent licenses; reduce
the royalties that will paid if each patent
holder licensed its own patents; reduces
the substantial cost for each licensee of
determining on its own the identity of
essential patent holders, reduce the
transaction costs of negotiating multiple
licenses, reduce the costs of essential
patent holders of providing licenses
thereby allowing licenses to be offered at a
lower price as well as creating a fair,
reasonable and nondiscriminatory license
to all interested licensees on the same
terms and conditions.
ABOUT MPEG LA
Q: Who heads up MPEG LA? What is his
background? Who else is on staff?
A: Baryn S. Futa serves as MPEG LA's
Manager & CEO. He was previously
executive vice president and chief
operating officer of CableLabs (see below
of background on CableLabs). He
graduated from the University of San
Francisco with a B.A. degree in
government and received his J.D. from the
University of California, Hastings College
of Law. Kenneth Rubenstein, a member of
the Mineola, New York-based law firm,
Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein, Wolf &
Schlissel, serves as MPEG LA's US
patent law counsel. Dr. Rubenstein holds a
Ph.D in plasma physics from MIT and a
J.D. from New York Law School.
Q: What patents are in the Portfolio? How
many? What countries?
A: We will provide such details at our
Press Conference of July 8, 1997 in
Tokyo. Each patent in the portfolio is
"essential" to a particular part of the
MPEG-2 standard. We will always
continue to welcome more essential
MPEG-2 patents into the portfolio. Our
goal is to have as many essential patents
included on a worldwide basis.
Q: Who decides which patents are
"essential"?
A: Independent patent counsel from
various countries will be called upon when
needed. Dr. Rubenstein is MPEG LA's
US patent counsel.
Q: How do you ensure that sublicensing
remains fair, non-discriminatory and
reasonable?
A: The patent portfolio license offered by
MPEG LA has the same terms and
conditions for all licensees. Further, the
license also ensures a fair process of
obtaining new MPEG-2 essential patents
and for a licensee to license its own
MPEG-2 essential patents to the pool on
the same terms and conditions as all
licensors.
Q: Once a license is purchased, does the
manufacturer have the option to "upgrade"
it as new patents are added to MPEG
LA's portfolio? What will the cost be?
A: Licenses will be automatically upgraded
when new licensors and new patents are
added to the Portfolio at no additional
cost.
Q: How much do I save as a manufacturer
by purchasing an MPEG LA patent
portfolio license?
A: The most important element of time and
cost saving lies in not having to approach
applicable patent holders independently.
Q: What happens to MPEG LA when its
patents expire?
A: The portfolio will contain many patents
from different countries that will expire at
various times. As such, the portfolio will
have a substantial amount of patent rights
for a very long time.
OTHER QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS
Q: What is CableLabs and why is
CableLabs so interested in digital
compression and the MPEG intellectual
property issues?
A: CableLabs is the R&D consortium for
the North American cable television
industry. The consortium's interest in
access to the MPEG-2 technology stems
from the importance of standardization as
a key to interoperability and cost
reduction and specifically to the
importance of MPEG-2 for the future of
digital television.
Q: Why was the US Department of
Justice review sought ?
A: In light of the unprecedented nature of
the effort and given the large numbers of
companies that have been involved and
will be involved, we feel it was prudent to
have the anti-trust division of the US
Department of Justice review our
program. As this press release indicates,
the DOJ has given its review to our
program and does not foresee any
anti-competitive problems with it. As such,
we feel that we have been achieved our
goal for fair, reasonable and
nondiscriminatory access to the MPEG-2
technology.
THE ISO AND IEC APPROVED
MPEG-2 AS IN
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD
IN 1995
Q: What is the difference between
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2?
A: The original goal of the MPEG
committee was to create a standard for
the delivery of video and audio on a
compact disc. The committee specifically
targeted bitrates of around 1.2 Mbits per
second (Mbps) for video and 250 kilobits
per second (kbps) for 2-channel stereo
audio. They succeeded and that original
standard is known as MPEG 1.
Distribution network industries, such as
cable television, realizing the potential of
digital compression technology to increase
services and lower costs, liked the MPEG
concept but were not limited by CD data
rates. Consequently, MPEG developed a
second effort that takes advantage of the
higher bandwidths (data rates) available to
these networks to deliver higher image
resolution and picture quality. Specifically,
this effort targeted increased image quality
in ranges from about 3 to 15 Mbps,
support of interlaced video formats, and
provision for multi-resolution scalability.
New audio features included encodng of
multi-channel audio and very-low bit rate
stereo. This is MPEG 2.
Q: Are MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 official
standards?
A: Yes, both are |
