Google and MPEG LA make a deal on VP8 video codec

Google and the licensed company MPEG LA concluded an agreement (pdf) on patents for the free VP8 codec - a key component of the WebM video standard, which is positioned as a free alternative to H.264.

MPEG LA controls the AVC / H.264 video standard and represents the interests of a large number of patents on video compression technology. MPEG LA lawyers began collecting a patent pool against the VP8 codec in May 2010 - and now they have completed the procedure. Total collected patents from 11 owners. Under the new agreement, all disputes are resolved, and patent owners give Google the right to issue sub-licenses for the use of their technology.

According to the official report , within several weeks MPEG LA and Google will prepare sublicensing conditions. Most likely, VP8 users will receive the right to free use of technology, without paying royalties to owners, that is, under the terms of the Royalty Free License . WebM itself after such a “patent clearance” gets the opportunity for standardization in ISO / IEC MPEG, where the corresponding application was filed in January 2013.

When the work on the WebM project began in 2010, Google’s lawyers conducted a thorough analysis and were “quite confident” in the patent purity of VP8. But this question is rather vague. In order not to expose all users of the VP8 codec to the risk of prosecution and paying license fees, Google decided to play it safe and entered into an agreement with MPEG LA. One Google employee explained that entering into a patent agreement with MPEG LA does not mean that VP8 is violating someone’s patents. “The purpose of this agreement is to provide even bigger and stronger guarantees for VP8 developers and users,” said Serge Lachapelle of the WebRTC development team at Google.
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VP8 was created as an open and free video codec, which should become a universally accepted standard on the Web instead of H.264. The patent agreement with MPEG-LA is an important step towards this goal.

Theoretically, it would be beneficial for MPEG LA consortium to wait for a certain time until the market mastered the supposedly free codec from Google to the maximum, and only then put forward the requirements for paying license fees from each user. Google's patent agreement with MPEG LA means that this will not happen. Any developers can safely use the VP8 codec, without fear of paying royalties in the future. This also applies to any VP8-based products, including Google's libvpx .

Moreover, Google received from MPEG LA the right to freely use these technologies also in the future VP9 codec, which is also guaranteed to be free and free for all users.

The financial terms of the deal between Google and MPEG LA are not disclosed.