*The MPEG-LA doesn't charge royalties to it's members* Is that true? I though me...

iujyhfgtrtgyhju · on March 4, 2011

It's a complex and secret process - but MSFT and Apple are not paying $10 for each copy of windows/iOS that includes an H264 player!

kenjackson · on March 4, 2011

There's a royalty cap. I believe MSFT is paying the maximum royalty cap for H264. And Apple only has one patent in the patent pool of 1000+ patents.

tomsaffell · on March 4, 2011

$10? If I understand the license[1] right - it's more like $0.10 to $0.20.

[1] - http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsS...

nullc · on March 5, 2011

This isn't the case. See the HP and MPEG-LA testimony before the FTC.

The pool agreement isn't exclusive. The members are free to license their patents through other venues, including cross licensing.

In fact, one of the points MPEG-LA made in their initial review letter with the DOJ is that he pool would not be used to force anyone to pay for a license to a patent which they were already licensed for some other means.

So a pool member only has to pay royalties iff they've been unable to achieve complete cross-licensing with the other pool members.