SIGNALS

Tombstone, Arizona Territory. October 26, 1881. It is a Wednesday, around 3:00 p.m. In a vacant lot adjacent to the O.K. Corral, four lawmen including Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday square off against five outlaws. Within 30 seconds, 30 shots are fired. When the gun smoke clears, three men lie on the ground, wounded. And three men lie on the ground, dead. Only Wyatt Earp walks away without a scratch. A Wild West legend is born.

Now, another fight has broken out, this time involving 4K video. Resolution of this dispute will take considerably longer than half a minute. It will proceed in an orderly, attorney-like time frame. But for sure, there will be a price to pay.

You own lots of cool stuff. Cool stuff like a stereo, television, and phone. But much of the technology inside that stuff, that is, the intellectual property, is owned by someone else. They invented it and most likely patented it, so they own it. At least until the patent expires and the IP becomes public domain, most patent holders want to get paid for their work. That’s not an unreasonable request, given the high cost of inventing cool stuff.

4K video is certainly no exception to that rule. Every 4K product embodies thousands of patents, and when you buy a 4K product, part of the cost pays for the licenses to use that IP. Some of the most crucial patents involve the compression algorithms that allow all those bits to move through reasonably small pipes and fit on reasonably small discs. High-quality compression will be even more crucial as we move into newer, more data-hungry technologies such as 4K UHD and eventually, 8K.

And one of the key compression technologies is High Efficiency Video Coding (commonly known as HEVC or H.265); that standard brings together many patents, owned by diverse patent holders. HEVC can be used for 4K products such as televisions, Blu-ray players, streaming services, and smartphones. Last year, licensing group MPEG LA said it would make available a pool of HEVC patents, much as it had with H.264/AVC, covering some 4,000 patents. That is a good thing; patent pools provide an excellent way for companies to navigate extremely complex IP issues.

Now, HEVC Advance, a new patent-licensing group, has announced that it also intends to license HEVC compression technology with its own patent pool. Further, it claims that some major patent holders have not signed on to MPEG LA. In particular, it represents licensors such as GE, Dolby, Philips, Mitsubishi Electric, and Technicolor (accounting for 500 patents) with more to follow.

It’s possible that the new pool could be blended with existing agreements and the rollout of new products would proceed smoothly. But the existence of two HEVC patent pools could also complicate things and delay both content and hardware. For starters, HEVC Advance hasn’t yet disclosed its licensing terms. Throw in some patent infringement lawsuits, and you might be looking at some serious speed bumps for 4K Ultra HDTV and Ultra HD Blu-ray.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Google owns the rival VP9 compression, and makes it available royalty-free. In any case, with three parties involved—two opposing patent pools, and a wild card technology—any company interested in promoting next-gen 4K, considering the unresolved legal risks, will have to slow down and be very cautious about proceeding. More specifically, you’d rather hire a small team of lawyers now, rather than an entire law firm later.

Three fresh graves were dug in Boothill Graveyard that day. Hopefully the 4K fight will not have any fatalities, but it’s hard to tell. The shooting has just begun.