Film tech group to pool digital protection patents
Thursday October 2, 2:00 pm ET
By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
AMSTERDAM, Oct 2 (Reuters) - A film technology group said on Thursday it wanted to collect all essential patents that can protect digital content such as music and movies, in an attempt to boost adoption of new distribution models over the Internet.
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Currently, it is not clear which companies own these patents. The uncertainty makes film and music publishers cautious to start selling their products in new digital ways.
The call for the patents was made by MPEG LA, which already offers all essential patents for the international digital video compression standard known as MPEG-2, used in DVDs.
"A patent portfolio license will accelerate market development by providing ready access to the essential technology," MPEG LA said in a statement.
MPEG LA hopes to have collected all essential digital rights management (DRM) patents in early 2004 and start licensing them later that year.
DRM allows companies to give people certain rights and withold others. For instance, a lawyer could send a draft letter to a client, but restrict that client from forwarding or printing it.
DRM can also arrange for songs to disappear from a PC after a certain time, or limit the number of copies that can be made.
Companies supporting the initiative include Netherlands-based Philips (Amsterdam:PHG.AS - News), Europe's largest consumer electronics maker, which hopes to sell more of its new digitally connected products if more films and music become available over the Internet.
"There's no clarity at the moment who owns the patents. It makes music and film publishers reluctant to move," said Ruud Peters, chief executive of Philips Intellectual Property and Standards.
Philips expects to bring patents into the pool, he said.
InterTrust, a company jointly owned by Philips and Japan's Sony Corp (Tokyo:6758.T - News), also has a large set of patents on digital rights management.
The companies pushing the initiative believe it is the first time patents are pooled before a standard has even been set.
Although the patent portfolio is not aimed at creating an open standard for the entire music, film, and technology industry, it should assist plans to come to an open standard, MPEG LA said.
At the moment digital rights, as well as many codecs which compress content for faster delivery over the Internet, are proprietary. It prevents consumers buying music on the Web and play the acquired songs on any device.
