Quote:
Originally Posted by noirdesir 
There are lots of patents in video compression and streaming, held by a large number of companies. What is the best way to prevent a mess of countless cross-licensing agreements and patent law suits and yet combine as much patents as possible to create the best technological solution possible?
Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.
Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?
But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.
There are lots of patents in video compression and streaming, held by a large number of companies. What is the best way to prevent a mess of countless cross-licensing agreements and patent law suits and yet combine as much patents as possible to create the best technological solution possible?
Why not get the 20 most-involved companies to pool all their patents, immediately removing the need for any cross-licensing agreements or law suits among them, and creating a state-of-the-art video codec from all this intellectual property. Let's charge pretty small, almost nominal, charges for anybody to use this codec. Since this patent pool would have such a large number of patents, no other company creating a video codec would be likely to sue as for any patent infringement because if we violate one of their patents, they also very likely violate some of our patents.
Doesn't this sound like the best idea to create both the best video codec possible and minimize all the patent wrangle associated with complex technology?
But you might say, would not be even better to make all those pooled patents completely free? Sounds nice in principle but if it is then found that our codec violates a patent from somebody else, we would not have any more ammunition left (ie, for a counter suit) to protect our codec from legal challenges.
This is not a good idea, in my opinion. Research costs, and no one will ever invest millions of dollars in something that may then be used freely by competitors.
Imagine you were a pharmaceutic industry, and you just developed a new medicine. You had to spend millions in research (instruments, wages, etc etc). If you don't patent your molecule, someone else is able to use it, without any investment in research, and you loose a lot of money.
\ )
I'm not putting crappy flash on my site.
