More than half of the H.264 patents have expired

[benwaggoner]

VIA LA's patent list includes extensions such as SVC and MVC which are technically part of the AVC standard but are not essential to implement (both SVC and MVC are backwards-compatible extensions).
https://www.via-la.com/licensing-2/avc-h-264/

You are correct about the High Profile though: The High profile was added on 1st March 2005, so that's the patent priority date to look for, I guess.
Since High mainly added 8x8 blocks, which were the pre-H.264 standard, I wonder if there are all that many essential patents for it. How to choose between and single 4x4 versus 8x8, perhaps?

[rwill]

VIA LA's patent list includes extensions such as SVC and MVC which are technically part of the AVC standard but are not essential to implement (both SVC and MVC are backwards-compatible extensions).


You write that MVC is backwards compatible. I have a question. If I write 128 as Profile IDC into a SPS to signal MVC Stereo High Profile, how is this backwards compatible to Profile IDC = 100 which is High Profile? If a Decoder knows nothing about Profile IDC = 128 or 132 and the corresponding change in syntax, would it not flat our fail to decode?

Since High mainly added 8x8 blocks, which were the pre-H.264 standard, I wonder if there are all that many essential patents for it. How to choose between and single 4x4 versus 8x8, perhaps?

That would be news to me that the very specific 8x8 Transform of AVC was a standard pre-H.264.

[Avclover]

VIA LA's patent list includes extensions such as SVC and MVC which are technically part of the AVC standard but are not essential to implement (both SVC and MVC are backwards-compatible extensions).

While that's true, the specific patent originated in 2002, got a ridiculous term extension and is not related to SVC or MVC.

Since High mainly added 8x8 blocks, which were the pre-H.264 standard, I wonder if there are all that many essential patents for it. How to choose between and single 4x4 versus 8x8, perhaps?

High profile also introduced quantization scaling matrices and separate C_B and C_R QP control to the specification.

[benwaggoner]

High profile also introduced quantization scaling matrices and separate C_B and C_R QP control to the specification.
Oh, right!

Not all encoders and bitstreams use those tools, but some certainly do, or at least can.

[Avclover]

I guess the amount of decoders with support is what counts from a licensing perspective.

[kurkosdr]

You write that MVC is backwards compatible. I have a question. If I write 128 as Profile IDC into a SPS to signal MVC Stereo High Profile, how is this backwards compatible to Profile IDC = 100 which is High Profile? If a Decoder knows nothing about Profile IDC = 128 or 132 and the corresponding change in syntax, would it not flat our fail to decode?
There is a simple answer to that: You won't do that, you will instead do what Blu-ray 3D wants, because it's the only use of MVC that matters (and fortunately it is backwards compatible with High profile).

And even if you don't care about Blu-ray 3D playback (say you are making MVC in MP4), then you will do whatever it takes to to not break High Profile anyway. I am sure there are multiple ways to produce a stream that's technically compliant with the latest version of the H.264/AVC standard but breaks the first High profile decoders, but don't do that if you want to get the benefits of the huge H.264/AVC installed base out there. That's true even if we are not talking about hardware players but software players. No real-world H.264/AVC stream out there breaks High Profile, not ones anyone would care about anyway.

So, as a person writing a software player, implementing the first version of the H.264/AVC standard that includes the High profile achieves compatibility with practically all real-world H.264/AVC streams out there.

[benwaggoner]

There is a simple answer to that: You won't do that, you will do what Blu-ray 3D wants, because that's the only use of MVC that matters (and is backwards compatible with High profile).
Except 3D Blu-ray is H.264, and Apple specifies using MV-HEVC. There will need to be some work to get it working for HEVC, >1080p, and for HDR. It's all pretty obvious how to do it, and the HC reference encoder includes MV-HEVC support.
So, implementing the first version of High Profile achieves compatibility with practically all real-world H.264/AVC streams.
Yeah. Thank goodness the days of "subset of Main and Baseline + B-frames" defacto subsets are behind us.

[kurkosdr]

Except 3D Blu-ray is H.264, and Apple specifies using MV-HEVC. There will need to be some work to get it working for HEVC, >1080p, and for HDR. It's all pretty obvious how to do it, and the HC reference encoder includes MV-HEVC support.

MV-HEVC has nothing to do with H.264/AVC, so it doesn't belong in this thread.

[oibaf]

Small update, a newer patent list is available (August 1, 2023 (https://web.archive.org/web/20230907021043/https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-August-1-2023-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf)).

I didn't notice earlier, because the website changed (from mpegla.com to via-la.com).

19 pages with unexpired patents, 37 pages with expired ones.

BTW, in that list unexpired patents are:
US: 540
CN: 132
JP: 129
KR: 97
GB: 95
DE: 92
FR: 91
IT: 68
NL: 67
ES: 65
BR: 57
CA: 31

There is also an interesting analysis here: https://scratchpad.fandom.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_patents : sometimes they differ in their expiration dates.

[kurkosdr]

It's been 3 months since August 1, 2023, so MPEG LA pushed a new list:
https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-November-1-2023-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf

----

BTW, in that list unexpired patents are:
US: 540
CN: 132
JP: 129
KR: 97
GB: 95
DE: 92
FR: 91
IT: 68
NL: 67
ES: 65
BR: 57
CA: 31

There is also an interesting analysis here: https://scratchpad.fandom.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_patents : sometimes they differ in their expiration dates.
I may try and make a csv list or spreadsheet of the MPEG LA document sometime so I can feed it to Google Patents, but if you already have one, can you post it? Basically trying to come up with a "isn't royalty-free before" date for every country (only taking into account patents with a priority date from before March 1, 2005)

[oibaf]

It's been 3 months since August 1, 2023, so MPEG LA pushed a new list:
https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-November-1-2023-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf

----


I may try and make a csv list or spreadsheet of the MPEG LA document sometime so I can feed it to Google Patents, but if you already have one, can you post it? Basically trying to come up with a "isn't royalty-free before" date for every country (only taking into account patents with a priority date from before March 1, 2005)

Now 17 pages with active patents, 40 with expired patents.

Updated active patents on November 2023 list:
US: 480
CN: 119
JP: 111
KR: 72
GB: 58
BR: 57
DE: 55
FR: 55
IT: 52
ES: 52
NL: 47
PL: 47
PT: 44
SE: 44
TR: 44
BE: 43
CH: 43
CZ: 42
HU: 41
DK: 40
EE: 40
HK: 40
LI: 40
MX: 39
AT: 38
SK: 35
FI: 34
AU: 32
IE: 31
LU: 29
RO: 29
NO: 25
RU: 21
VN: 21
IN: 17
CA: 16
SI: 15
MC: 12


A total of 72 patents will expire in the next 3 months.

I don't have a better list, to get these numbers I just did this:

opened the PDF with pdfarranger, cut all the pages leaving only the pages with active patents and saved as a new PDF
opened the resulting PDF with Firefox, its search function gives the number of occurrences

[kurkosdr]

Now 18 pages with active patents, 39 with expired patents.

Updated active patents on November 2023 list:
US: 480
CN: 119
JP: 111
KR: 72
GB: 58
BR: 57
DE: 55
FR: 55
IT: 52
ES: 52
NL: 47
CA: 16


A total of 72 patents will expire in the next 3 months.

I don't have a better list, to get these numbers I just did this:

opened the PDF with pdfarranger, cut all the pages leaving only the pages with active patents and saved as a new PDF
opened the resulting PDF with Firefox, its search function gives the number of occurrences

Huh? It's actually 17 pages, with page #17 being only partially filled.

[oibaf]

Huh? It's actually 17 pages, with page #17 being only partially filled.

Indeed, fixed, thanks. Also added other countries.

[oibaf]

I may try and make a csv list or spreadsheet of the MPEG LA document sometime so I can feed it to Google Patents, but if you already have one, can you post it? Basically trying to come up with a "isn't royalty-free before" date for every country (only taking into account patents with a priority date from before March 1, 2005)

Some other useful resources here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F
https://www.uspto.gov/patents/laws/patent-term-calculator

[kurkosdr]

Some other useful resources here:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F
The person who wrote this doesn't know what they are talking about, confusing date-of-priority with date-of-filing, and when I tried correcting them on the discussion page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F#About_the_Dolby_patent_(US_7,395,211)), they went off on an unrelated rant about random nonsense.

Just to be clear: When looking for prior art, you should search for prior art from before the date-of-priority, not the date-of-filing.

I would say to take that person's advice with vast amounts of salt, but nope, their advice is complete BS, so don't take it at all. Wait a couple of weeks until the last US patent has expired.

Also, all this is irrelevant to H.264/AVC. Back to H.264/AVC.

[oibaf]

The person who wrote this doesn't know what they are talking about, confusing date-of-priority with date-of-filing, and when I tried correcting them on the discussion page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F#About_the_Dolby_patent_(US_7,395,211)), they went off on an unrelated rant about random nonsense.

Just to be clear: When looking for prior art, you should search for prior art from before the date-of-priority, not the date-of-filing.

I would say to take that person's advice with vast amounts of salt, but nope, their advice is complete BS, so don't take it at all. Wait a couple of weeks until the last US patent has expired.

Also, all this is irrelevant to H.264/AVC. Back to H.264/AVC.


US 7,395,211 is only for watermarking anyway, so it is not usually used, for example with xvid, correct? The patent says: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to steganography in the context of audio or video signals. More particularly, the invention relates to modifying the encoder and / or decoder operation of an audio or video perceptual coding system according to supplemental information so that supplemental information can be detectable at the output of the decoder . Such supplemental information is often referred to as a "watermark". Watermarking is an aspect of steganography.

EDIT: starting in january 2023 Fedora (owned by Red Hat / IBM) added xvid to the distro, so I suppose they know it could be freely distributed?

[kurkosdr]

US 7,395,211 is only for watermarking anyway, so it is not usually used, for example with xvid, correct? The patent says:

EDIT: starting in january 2023 Fedora (owned by Red Hat / IBM) added xvid to the distro, so I suppose they know it could be freely distributed?
MPEG LA has an "essentiality overview" for their patents, and they list this patent as being essential to section "Grayscale shape decoding" of the specification:
https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/M4VCrossRef.pdf

Just because the title of the patent says something about watermarking, it doesn't mean the ideas it describes aren't essential to some part of the MPEG4 ASP specification. What matters is the claims in the patent (and how they apply to the MPEG4 ASP spec).

If the Fedora people think they don't implement that part of the spec, fine, but the spec is still patented in the US.

BTW I have found a recent version of the spec if you want to look at the relevant section:
http://wikil.lwwhome.cn:28080/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ISO_IEC_14496-2_2004.pdf

[oibaf]

The page at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F says: "The Dolby patent (7,395,211) that was added to the pool in April 2021...". If that's true that let me think MPEG LA searched for a patent still pending, but that had a priority before publishing the MPEG4 Part 2 standard (so that it cannot be invalidated by the prior art of the standard, or not deemed essential for it) and added it to the pool in 2021 just for having another year of fees in the US.

While this doesn't matter a lot now (the patent is expiring in some days, and also this is H.264 thread), it let me suppose they may have done the same for H.264 patent pool. US9356620B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9356620B2/en) is indeed another suspect for H.264 (added to the pool recently, expiration date farer than other in pool even if it was filed before the standard).

The difficulty is to find if they really apply to the standards on not. About 7,395,211 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7395211B2/en) it really looks like it is a way to add watermark that can be inserted into the encoder and recovered by the decoder, something not really usually needed by a standard decoder, but that you can take into account for some needs.

[kurkosdr]

The page at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_Visual_expired_yet%3F says: "The Dolby patent (7,395,211) that was added to the pool in April 2021...". If that's true that let me think MPEG LA searched for a patent still pending, but that had a priority before publishing the MPEG4 Part 2 standard (so that it cannot be invalidated by the prior art of the standard, or not deemed essential for it) and added it to the pool in 2021 just for having another year of fees in the US.

While this doesn't matter a lot now (the patent is expiring in some days, and also this is H.264 thread), it let me suppose they may have done the same for H.264 patent pool. US9356620B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9356620B2/en) is indeed another suspect for H.264 (added to the pool recently, expiration date farer than other in pool even if it was filed before the standard).
Thing is, they did find a part of the MPEG4 ASP specification to stick their patent on, and the date-of-priority checks out, which means someone competent needs to do an investigation to find out it is not essential before it can be declared non-essential. There is an organization called "unified patents" that does that (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights?tag=SEP), but they only deal with newer standards. If no such investigation is done, there is a chance that the patent is indeed essential and then you are in for a world of hurt if you haven't paid the royalties.


The difficulty is to find if they really apply to the standards on not. About 7,395,211 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7395211B2/en) it really looks like it is a way to add watermark that can be inserted into the encoder and recovered by the decoder, something not really usually needed by a standard decoder, but that you can take into account for some needs.
Again, the title on the patent is irrelevant. What matters is the claims. If for example MPEG4 ASP uses a method for overlaying something on top of something else that's similar to the claims described in the watermarking patent, then the patent is essential for MPEG4 ASP.

My point is: Stop assuming a patent in the pool is not essential because of the title of the patent or the date it was added to the pool or some other irrelevant factor. What you need is to have someone competent do an investigation regarding its essentiality.

[oibaf]

My point is: Stop assuming a patent in the pool is not essential because of the title of the patent or the date it was added to the pool or some other irrelevant factor. What you need is to have someone competent do an investigation regarding its essentiality.

100% agree for the investigation.
However, it is something that can be only done by someone with enough knowledge of the codecs and the patents law (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/ is interesting, thanks for the suggestion).
In the meantime we can just argue and document about what we find suspect.

[hajj_3]

nokia has filed lots of lawsuits against Amazon and HP in various countries about video codec patents and streaming patents: https://www.nokia.com/blog/nokia-seeks-compensation-for-amazons-use-of-our-patented-multimedia-inventions/

nokia vs amazon u.s lawsuit document: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928543/1/nokia-technologies-oy-v-amazoncom-inc/
nokia vs hp u.s lawsuit document: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928650/1/nokia-technologies-oy-v-hp-inc/

patents nokia is suing hp over and their expiry dates as nokia listed in the court filing:

US7,532,808 - 2025-12-11 -h264
US8,204,134 - 2028-01-21 -h264
US7,724,818 - 2026-05-03 -h264+h265
US10,536,714 - 2032-11-01 -h265
US11,805,267 - 2032-01-06 -h265
US8,077,991 - 2030-10-12 -h265
US8,050,321 - 2027-05-19 -h264+h265
US6,950,469 - expired on 2023-08-06 -h264
US7,280,599 - expired on 2022-05-14 -h264
US8,036,273 - expired on 2021-09-17 -h264

patents nokia is suing amazon over, nokia did not list the expiration dates in this lawsuit therefore i am getting them off google patents:

US7,532,808 - 2025-12-11? -h264
US8,050,321 - 2027-05-19? -h264+h265?
US7,724,818 - 2026-05-03? -h264+h265?
US6,950,469 - expired 2023-08-06?
US7,280,599 - expired 2022-05-14?
US8,036,273 - expired 2021-09-17?
US6,856,701 - expired 2021-11-27?
US9,800,891 - expired 2021-01-19?
US6,968,005 - expired 2023-01-19?
US8,144,764 - 2024-10-15? -h264
US8,175,148 - 2026-12-03? -h264+h265?
US8,077,991 - 2030-10-12? -h265
US9,571,833 - 2034-10-13? -h265
US11,805,267 - 2032-01-06? -h265
US9,390,137 - 2033-08-01?

nokia is not a part of the via-la licensing for H264 (formerly known as mpeg-la) therefore none of these patents are listed in the via-la licensing list of H264 patents. I haven't checked for other codecs.

[hajj_3]

p.s here is the october 2023 h265 patent landscape, still many companies not in a patent pool:

https://accessadvance.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023Q4-HEVC-Patent-Diagram-10-01-23.jpg

[kurkosdr]

p.s here is the october 2023 h265 patent landscape, still many companies not in a patent pool:

(image)
For the second time, HEVC/H.265 is irrelevant to this thread.

[kurkosdr]

nokia has filed lots of lawsuits against Amazon and HP in various countries about video codec patents and streaming patents: https://www.nokia.com/blog/nokia-seeks-compensation-for-amazons-use-of-our-patented-multimedia-inventions/

nokia vs amazon u.s lawsuit document: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928543/1/nokia-technologies-oy-v-amazoncom-inc/
nokia vs hp u.s lawsuit document: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928650/1/nokia-technologies-oy-v-hp-inc/

patents nokia is suing hp over and their expiry dates as nokia listed in the court filing:

US7,532,808 - 2025-12-11 -h264
US8,204,134 - 2028-01-21 -h264
US7,724,818 - 2026-05-03 -h264+h265
US10,536,714 - 2032-11-01 -h265
US11,805,267 - 2032-01-06 -h265
US8,077,991 - 2030-10-12 -h265
US8,050,321 - 2027-05-19 -h264+h265
US6,950,469 - expired on 2023-08-06 -h264
US7,280,599 - expired on 2022-05-14 -h264
US8,036,273 - expired on 2021-09-17 -h264

patents nokia is suing amazon over, nokia did not list the expiration dates in this lawsuit therefore i am getting them off google patents:

US7,532,808 - 2025-12-11? -h264
US8,050,321 - 2027-05-19? -h264+h265?
US7,724,818 - 2026-05-03? -h264+h265?
US6,950,469 - expired 2023-08-06?
US7,280,599 - expired 2022-05-14?
US8,036,273 - expired 2021-09-17?
US6,856,701 - expired 2021-11-27?
US9,800,891 - expired 2021-01-19?
US6,968,005 - expired 2023-01-19?
US8,144,764 - 2024-10-15? -h264
US8,175,148 - 2026-12-03? -h264+h265?
US8,077,991 - 2030-10-12? -h265
US9,571,833 - 2034-10-13? -h265
US11,805,267 - 2032-01-06? -h265
US9,390,137 - 2033-08-01?

nokia is not a part of the via-la licensing for H264 (formerly known as mpeg-la) therefore none of these patents are listed in the via-la licensing list of H264 patents. I haven't checked for other codecs.

From Nokia's announcement, it looks like their patents cover more than video compression: "video compression, content delivery, content recommendation and aspects related to hardware."

Things like content delivery, content recommendation and "aspects related to hardware" (whatever that means) are not essential for implementing an H.264 encoder or decoder. For example, MPEG LA used to have a separate patent tool for MPEG-DASH (https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/DASHAtt1.pdf) (a content-delivery/streaming standard) because MPEG-DASH is not essential for H.264 so those patents couldn't go into the H.264 patent pool.

Let's start with how many of those patents tagged as H.264 (H.265 is irrelevant to this thread) have a date-of-priority from before 1st March 2005, because for patents with a date-of-priority after 1st March 2005 the spec and reference encoder and decoder from ISO and ITU will count as prior art. Not to say that those that patents that have a date-of-priority from before 1st March 2005 are necessarily essential (see previous paragraph).

Does anyone know of a website that shows the date-of-priority? Google Patents used to before they removed the feature.

[oibaf]

Does anyone know of a website that shows the date-of-priority? Google Patents used to before they removed the feature.

Maybe: on Google Patents look under Worldwide applications and click on the older date patents, then look at their older date inside them.

Example: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7835443/ has filing date of 2008-09-26, but under Worldwide applications there is 2003 year with a KR patent with a filing date of 2003-03-03.
So 2003-03-03 can be the priority date?

[oibaf]

Let's start with how many of those patents tagged as H.264 (H.265 is irrelevant to this thread) have a date-of-priority from before 1st March 2005, because for patents with a date-of-priority after 1st March 2005 the spec and reference encoder and decoder from ISO and ITU will count as prior art. Not to say that those that patents that have a date-of-priority from before 1st March 2005 are necessarily essential (see previous paragraph).


Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Video_Coding says:

Version 1 (Edition 1): (May 30, 2003) First approved version of H.264/AVC containing Baseline, Main, and Extended profiles.[11]
Version 2 (Edition 1.1): (May 7, 2004) Corrigendum containing various minor corrections.[12]
Version 3 (Edition 2): (March 1, 2005) Major addition containing the first amendment, establishing the Fidelity Range Extensions (FRExt). This version added the High, High 10, High 4:2:2, and High 4:4:4 profiles.[13] After a few years, the High profile became the most commonly used profile of the standard.

But then it also says:
First published 17 August 2004

Since the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003 (20 years ago) and the most commonly used profile (the High profile) was completed in June 2004 (19 years ago)...

Do you know what all these dates refer?
Maybe High profile was already defined in 2004, but the official standard paper was published on March 1, 2005?
Or there is something wrong there?
It would be nice if someone add some references in Wikipedia page about these dates.

[oibaf]

There is a new February 2024 update (https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-February-1-2024-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf).

In the previous November 2023 update (https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-November-1-2023-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf) there were 17 pages of patents, in the newer one there are still 17 pages with a higher number of patents.

In details, here is the total number of patents:

2023-11 list: 2263
2024-02 list: 2335


It looks like since the latest update 72 patents expired, and 144 new patents were added.

The good news is that in the next 3 months 556 patents should expire (which is about 24% of remaining active patents).

I am attaching the ordered lists, if you are interested.

[FranceBB]

The good news is that in the next 3 months 556 patents should expire (which is about 24% of remaining active patents)

Very nice.
My only fear is that MPEG-LA will try to kill H.264 once a large enough number of patents expires (which would really be a shame).
I hope I'm wrong, but this is what Dolby did when the AC3 patents expired as they pushed for E-AC3 and now AC4...

[benwaggoner]

Very nice.
My only fear is that MPEG-LA will try to kill H.264 once a large enough number of patents expires (which would really be a shame).
I hope I'm wrong, but this is what Dolby did when the AC3 patents expired as they pushed for E-AC3 and now AC4...
MPEG-LA doesn't provide any tools, standards, etcetera. Once all relevant patents have expired, they'll presumably shut down teh licensing program because there would be nothing to license. But the H.264 ecosystem would keep on trucking, just without patents or licensing to worry about.

[FranceBB]

Once all relevant patents have expired, they'll presumably shut down the licensing program because there would be nothing to license.

Gotcha, so everything will keep going.
Looks like H.264 is gonna stay with us for a very long time then. :)

[kurkosdr]

Very nice.
My only fear is that MPEG-LA will try to kill H.264 once a large enough number of patents expires (which would really be a shame).
MPEG-LA doesn't provide any tools, standards, etcetera. Once all relevant patents have expired, they'll presumably shut down teh licensing program because there would be nothing to license. But the H.264 ecosystem would keep on trucking, just without patents or licensing to worry about.

One risk is that, as patents expire, the companies with still-active patents each go their own merry way so they can milk as much of their old patents as possible. This could make H.264 more costly to license.

This is why I am interested in seeing how many patents with a priority date before 1st March 2005 remain active after that date (or realistically, after the end of 2025 to account for minor extensions). In the meantime, H.264 is just too ubiquitous to die in the next 2 years.

Very nice. this is what Dolby did when the AC3 patents expired as they pushed for E-AC3 and now AC4...
Personally, I am not necessarily annoyed by the Dolby formats themselves but the lack of a stereo AAC secondary stream when a Dolby audio format is being broadcast. For example, there was an attempt in France to have the UHD terrestrial channels be AC4-only with no secondary stream whatsoever, and I was like "Are those broadcasters (and the governments that oversee them) completely out of their minds? Or completely in the pocket of Dolby?" AC4 is not supported by many TVs and is mostly unsupported on PCs. Fortunately, all those few broadcasters here in Europe that had gone AC4-only have since realised their mistake and have added E-AC3 secondary streams alongside the AC4, so that's a headache avoided, at least here in Europe (don't know how things are in the US).

About E-AC3, I understand the need for it, since the move to H.265 for FullHD content is making the bitrate inefficiency of AC3 more apparent (especially when accompanied by an AAC secondary stream as it should), but E-AC3 can still be a headache when on its own (though not of AC4 proportions obviously). Speaking of which, do we have a list of E-AC3 patents? Some countries (like France) use E-AC3 exclusively even for H.264 broadcasts, so it's almost on topic.

[oibaf]

E-AC3 patent thread: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=184389
Here there is a link to another hydrogenaudio forum thread.

[kurkosdr]

E-AC3 patent thread: https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=184389
Here there is a link to another hydrogenaudio forum thread.
Oops, forgot about that.

[kurkosdr]

There is a new February 2024 update (https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-February-1-2024-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf).

In the previous November 2023 update (https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-November-1-2023-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf) there were 17 pages of patents, in the newer one there are still 17 pages with a higher number of patents.

In details, here is the total number of patents:

2023-11 list: 2263
2024-02 list: 2335


It looks like since the latest update 72 patents expired, and 144 new patents were added.

The good news is that in the next 3 months 556 patents should expire (which is about 24% of remaining active patents).

I am attaching the ordered lists, if you are interested.
Since your attachments are "pending approval", can you post the two lists on some external site like pastebin?

I want to see how many of those 144 new patents are from before 1st March 2005 (at least the application date).

It seems weird some entity would have a patent essential to the High Profile and would not collect royalties on it for 18+ years.

[oibaf]

Since your attachments are "pending approval", can you post the two lists on some external site like pastebin?


2023-11 active patents list (https://pastebin.com/raw/cAJHy7WH)
2024-02 active patents list (https://pastebin.com/raw/RybqdxGW)

I want to see how many of those 144 new patents are from before 1st March 2005 (at least the application date).

It seems weird some entity would have a patent essential to the High Profile and would not collect royalties on it for 18+ years.

I suspects they are mostly newer patents for recent H.264 extensions, mostly unused. Anyway, let us know! ;)

[kurkosdr]

2023-11 active patents list (https://pastebin.com/raw/cAJHy7WH)
2024-02 active patents list (https://pastebin.com/raw/RybqdxGW)



I suspects they are mostly newer patents for recent H.264 extensions, mostly unused. Anyway, let us know! ;)
Thanks!

I cleaned up the February 2024 list from the "exp" strings (and removed the expiring patents from the November 2023 list, since they have already expired):
Nov 2023: https://pastebin.com/raw/WaN3xweH
Feb 2024: https://pastebin.com/raw/X0HvJ70b

So, now we can do a:
diff --side-by-side --suppress-common-lines nov2023.txt feb2024.txt

And we get the list of 144 new patents:
https://pastebin.com/raw/iNeDqFwK

But wait, there is more, MPEG LA likes to list the EP patents for every country they apply to, which means that a single EP patent creates 24 entries. Same for the EA and AP patents, which create 8 and 18 entries respectively. So, if we clean up a bit further, we get "only" 51 new patents:
https://pastebin.com/raw/AD5ih8vf
(note: I have added the 5 "international" patents at the top of the text)

This is a low enough number that I can run them all through Google Patents manually, 17 a day will do it (I really want to see how many of them have application dates from before 1 March 2005).

Also, ideally we'd have a way to provide automated submissions to Google Patents (so I can run the full Feb 2024 list through Google Patents to extract application date and expected expiration for each), but I can't guarantee I will attempt something like that.

@oibaf
Also, how do you convert from PDF to text (and remove noise such as page numbers and company names)?

[kurkosdr]

Also, one WTF I have already noticed, the last US patent (numerically) on the list is US 11,871,015 has an application date of 2022-09-21, which is weird because the last version of the AVC/H.264 standard according to Wikipedia and VIA-LA's own website is 2021-08-22. Shouldn't the standard itself count as prior art? At this point, I think they are just adding random non-essential stuff (for example encoding optimization methods) to pad the number of patents in the pool.

[Avclover]

US 11,871,015 is based on the same priority document than the rest of this patent family which predates the standard. Data in Google patents is often flawed or incomplete but it's clearly stated on the cover sheet of the actual patent. Nothing shady afaict.

[oibaf]

Also, how do you convert from PDF to text (and remove noise such as page numbers and company names)?

Well... given it looks you are using some unix version it's as simple as typing on the CLI what you already asked ;):
pdftotext file.pdf

You can also first cut the first pages with active patents (17, for the last 2 reports) using pdfarranger before that.

Then, you can just use some trick like this:
grep [0-9] file.txt | sort | uniq > file-cleaned.txt
and then manually check the resulting file to remove spurious lines (or improve the above command).

To get the unique EP patent from the "multiple European patents" you can do something like:
grep EP file-cleaned.txt | grep -v Exp | cut -d'(' -f2 | cut -d')' -f1 | sort | uniq

Always check the resulting file, because the original PDF file have some typos that may break something.

[oibaf]

This is a low enough number that I can run them all through Google Patents manually, 17 a day will do it (I really want to see how many of them have application dates from before 1 March 2005).

Also, ideally we'd have a way to provide automated submissions to Google Patents (so I can run the full Feb 2024 list through Google Patents to extract application date and expected expiration for each), but I can't guarantee I will attempt something like that.

Any news? :)

[oibaf]

BTW, it looks like there are only two patents still active in EU (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F#European_patents), expiring in less than 10 months:

2025-01-26: EP 1709801 (https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1709801B1/de) (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
2025-01-26: EP 2384002 (https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2384002B1/de) (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)

Do someone known if they are really needed for the common used High Profile? (or if they are needed for something else)

[hajj_3]

BTW, it looks like there are only two patents still active in EU (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F#European_patents),

nokia has some patents too.

[hajj_3]

an updated list of h265 patent pools:

https://accessadvance.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024Q2-HEVC-Patent-Diagram-04-01-24-2048x1536.jpg

[oibaf]

BTW, it looks like there are only two patents still active in EU (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_H.264_MPEG-4_AVC_expired_yet%3F#European_patents),

nokia has some patents too.

Do you have any references?

[hajj_3]

Do you have any references?

nokia is suing hp and amazon over h264 patents:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928650/nokia-technologies-oy-v-hp-inc/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928543/nokia-technologies-oy-v-amazoncom-inc/

[oibaf]

nokia is suing hp and amazon over h264 patents:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928650/nokia-technologies-oy-v-hp-inc/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67928543/nokia-technologies-oy-v-amazoncom-inc/

"District Court, D. Delaware"

I cannot see the patents, but it just looks like U.S. related, or is there any other detail related to EU patents?

[hajj_3]

"District Court, D. Delaware"

I cannot see the patents, but it just looks like U.S. related, or is there any other detail related to EU patents?

https://www.nokia.com/blog/nokia-seeks-compensation-for-amazons-use-of-our-patented-multimedia-inventions/

[kurkosdr]

Any news? :)
Life got in the way, but anyway, someone has made a much better list.

nokia has some patents too.
No, they don't, not necessarily.

As I've explained to you on the previous page, Nokia says their patents cover "video compression, content delivery, content recommendation and aspects related to hardware".

We only care about video compression, not the other three, and even then only essential ones. So, unless Nokia comes forward and clarifies which patents relate to video compression and which of those they consider to be essential, they cannot be assumed to have asserted a single patent against H.264.

[Spyros]

After three months, a new patent list is available: May 1, 2024 (https://web.archive.org/web/20240503094239/https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploads/Final-May-1-2024-AVC-Attachment-1.pdf)

14 pages with unexpired patents, 45 pages with expired ones (compared to 17 pages with unexpired patents, 41 pages with expired ones in February).
Sorry, I don't have the patience to analyze them methodically, feel free to do so if you want. :D

The next three months seem uneventful, with only 20 patents expiring in that period.

(Btw, I'll update the first post to show the gradual progress of patents expiring)

[benwaggoner]

https://www.nokia.com/blog/nokia-seeks-compensation-for-amazons-use-of-our-patented-multimedia-inventions/
Unified Patents has list of patents in litigation by company: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/caselist?patent_owners=Nokia+Technologies+OY

Which helpfully lists the patents in question with links.