● 06.20.11
●● Ogg Backer Strikes Back Against the MPEG-LA Cartel
Posted in Audio/Video, Patents at 9:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Following the attacks from MPEG-LA against free codecs, Xiph.org submits an appeal to the FTC
“Xiph.org asks FTC to make the practice of submarine patents anti-competitive,” notes this person who links to a seemingly new page from the creators of Ogg. Techrights publishes in Ogg Theora on a daily basis and TechBytes makes Ogg Vorbis files at least once a week. These are good compression algorithms that have come under attack from the Microsoft- and Apple-back cartel known as MPEG-LA. We wrote about it in this site many times before and we have also just created a wiki page.
“This gives the holder of such a patent the ability to hinder or eliminate entire markets which would compete with their own offerings.” –Xiph.OrgTo quote the introduction to this complaint: “Xiph.Org submitted the following comments in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s Request for Comments and Announcement of Workshop on Standard-Setting Issues, Project No. P111204. The document’s intended audience is law and policy wonks. As such it uses technical legal language that may not be immediately accessible to a wide audience. If in doubt, please consult a patent attorney before posting long rants to Reddit or Slashdot.
“Patents affect standards in a fundamentally different way from any other context. Competition normally limits the value of a patent, with that value determined by the advantage of the patented technique over the next best option. However, patents essential to the implementation of a standard gain their value from network effects. The innovation often plays no role. This gives the holder of such a patent the ability to hinder or eliminate entire markets which would compete with their own offerings.”
As we noted earlier this year, MPEG-LA has already come under investigation. It is recognised that something detrimental to the public is going on there. █
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