Taking a leaf from MPEG-LA's playbook, Google has announced the WebM Community Cross-License Initiative, a consortium of companies that agree to share any patents that those companies may hold that are relevant to the WebM video format, and in particular the VP8 video compression algorithm. True to Google's ambitions for the format, the shared patents are all available on a royalty-free basis, both to consortium members and anyone else that wants to implement WebM.
Since the launch of WebM, Google has positioned itself as the only company with relevant patents. Though the company is still not acknowledging that any third parties might have any patent claims, creating this community means that even if such claims emerge at a later date, then, as long as those claims are made by community members, they pose no risk to WebM users.
In creating this community, Google is acting in a manner similar to MPEG-LA, the organization that handles licensing for competing video codec H.264. MPEG-LA forms patent pools where groups of related patents that are jointly licensed together, in a convenient package, with the aim of giving would-be implementors of a particular technology a one-stop shop to obtain all the intellectual property rights they need. MPEG-LA's agreements also include certain conditions that protect licensees; if a company with patents in the pool discovers that it has additional patents that cover the technology, licensees need not worry: their licenses will cover the use of these patents too.
The major difference between the two is that MPEG-LA charges for use of its patent pools in many, but not every, scenario, whereas the WebM Community Cross-License Initiative will not charge in any way, ever.
The move will serve to better assure would-be implementors of WebM technology that it will not open them up to legal liability. Lawsuit-magnet Microsoft, in particular, has raised a number of questions about the patent risk surrounding WebM, and is unlikely to integrate support for the standard until the concerns are resolved to its satisfaction (though it's happy for Google to take the risk). Creating a consortium of companies bound by a promise to offer any relevant patents they may own on a royalty-free basis, even without identifying what those patents may be, is a positive step by Google to diminish that risk.
The exact terms of the cross-license agreement have not been decided. The intent is to create an agreement that essentially extends Google's existing VP8 patent grants to all the community members: they will each offer a royalty-free license to use their patents, subject to the condition that community members not sue each other. If any community member sues any other for any patent related to WebM then the suing community member wil lose its rights to use any of the other WebM Patents.
Update: A Matroska developer has informed us that although the terms on the site are described only as a "summary", they are in fact the full and final document that was signed.
Including Google itself, there are currently 17 companies in the WebM Community, representing a range of interests. Browser developers Opera and Mozilla are both members, as is consumer electronics giant LG Electronics, along with semiconductor supremos Samsung and Texas Instruments. Notable absences from the community include Microsoft and Apple.
Indeed, compared to the list of companies with patents in the H.264 patent pool—the companies perhaps most likely to have patents covering WebM—and the lack of overlap is significant. Cisco, LG, and Samsung are members of both groups, but there are 26 other companies in the H.264 patent pool that have not yet joined the WebM initiative. These companies all have a vested interest in defending H.264's royalty payments, and their absence will leave some doubts over the significance of the consortium.
MPEG-LA is not standing still either. In February, the company announced a call for the submission of WebM patents, with a view to forming a patent pool of its own. That initial call ended last month, and though the group has been quiet since that announcement, a statement given to The H said that patents had been submitted for inclusion in the pool, and that the pool-creation process was continuing. The next step for MPEG-LA will be to assess the submitted patents to determine if they are essential to VP8; if they are, a pool will be formed.
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