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Jury Rules That H.264 is Not Patented
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jan 27, 2007 06:18 AM
from the yay-for-tivos-i-mean-broadcom dept.
from the yay-for-tivos-i-mean-broadcom dept.
Dr Kool, PhD writes "According to Bloomberg, a jury ruled against Qualcomm in their patent lawsuit against Broadcom. Qualcomm had sought $8.3 million in damages for patent infringement stemming from Broadcom's H.264 encoder/decoder chips. From the article: 'The patents, covering a way to compress high-definition video, are unenforceable in part because Qualcomm withheld information from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, jurors in San Diego said today after deliberating less than six hours.' This ruling clears the way for H.264 to become a widely adopted open standard."
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Too late ? (Score:2)
Not really (Score:4, Interesting)
For that matter, I haven't heard any measurements lately of AAC vs Vorbis, but it seems to me that unless Vorbis is actually better, the best way to encode a video would be h.264+aac, probably wrapped in ogm or mkv, but could also work as avi or mov.
Of course, I often just keep the original DVD stream around, which means -- what -- mpeg2+aac?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No AAC, which is Apple's baby.
The reason you use something like H.264 is because it offers much higher compression with similar visual quality as mpeg2. So you can take a DVD movie and compress it down to a third of it's original size (or more) and still keep enough quality that the difference is unnoticable.
This is important for doing things l
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
RealNetworks, Apple and Nero (among others) just took a license on this existing (MPEG4, ISO/IEC: 13818-7) standard and built their own encoder implementations.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It has been a while since I messed with it, but I think I had Theora streaming with peercast as well.
For those that don't know, peercast does peer to peer streaming.
http://www.peercast.org/ [peercast.org]
all the best,
drew
AAC vs AC3 (Score:2)
Still, there you go. Mostly some very good advice, although I imagine that vorbis is really acceptable. I use flac for my music, but that's mostly because I don't like to lose more quality than I have to by transcoding, and you never know when I might buy something like an iPod and have to transcode -- flac->aac is better than, say, vorbis->aac. And also because my music collection is small enough that that works.
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Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Dear God No. h.264 and AAC are MPEG-4. For the love of all that is good and holy please use MP4 as the container.
Re:Matroska and AVC/AAC (Score:5, Informative)
Also, you can't mux [Ogg] Vorbis [vorbis.com] in an MP4 container (I believe you can do that in a MOV/QuickTime container, however; also, using the private data stream hack doesn't count), and Vorbis can match, better, or come close to (dependent on source material) the quality of AAC at the same bitrates. Also, if H.264 (ISO/IEC 14496-10 for those who care) is truly now a public domain standard, then it would be far more desirable to mux H.264 video with Vorbis audio as both are open, unencumbered standards. It would also be good to do this in Matroska as that is also an open, unencumbered standard (QuickTime's file format may or may not be patented, but I'd guess it is).
Now I'd definitely recommend using MP4 if everything you're muxing is part of the MPEG-4 (ISO/IEC 14496) standard (e.g. H.264 (or even DivX/Xvid), AAC, TT) as that would make most sense, but beware the limitations of the MP4 container format. The "subtle differences" between MP4 and QuickTime/MOV are the codecs supported.
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Re:Not really (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically you'll use anything *but* the actual standard MPEG-4 container that's designed to carry h264/aac streams? What's wrong with
This is a somewhat separate rant and not really directed at the parent, but it seems like between pirates sticking with their habitual use of Xvid/DivX in avi, and OSS fanatics refusing to use anything non-OSS in favor of Theora in
MPEG-4 standards, specifically h264/aac streams in an
If we'd all pick up the MPEG-4 stack the way we all standardized on
Imagine a world where every camcorder, or DVD player, or computer, or PMP, or digital camera, or cell phone, or what not, could record and play back in the same interoperable high quality/bitrate video format with no special file conversions or re-encoding, just like all of those devices support
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Re: (Score:2)
If it becomes popular to a point that it gets more than 100,000 downloads in a year, am I liable for paying royalties?
Re:Not really (Score:4, Interesting)
I seem to recall that some existing OSS MPEG-4 related projects distribute source code only for that sort of reason.
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Re:Not really (Score:5, Interesting)
They distribute source code because the courts (in the USA at least) have ruled that source code is speech, as in "freedom of" and binaries are not. Thus they are a lot better protected from claims of patent infringment if they stay away from the binaries.
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h264 isn't ideal for portable media (Score:2)
If you're optimizing for space, sure, h264 is great. However, most PMPs are hard drive based, and thus have lots of space to spare.
Re: (Score:2)
So, if you really want to compare DivX and h264 playback power consumption, you should do it on the same device with the same battery; since comparing apples to oranges means nothing.
I would actually be interested in seeing such a comparison, if anyone watching has a iPod
Re: (Score:2)
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What's wrong with .mp4?
Off the top of my head I can think of a very good reason why we shouldn't call it MP4. Some non-tech saavy person asks a Best Buy sales rep (who doesn't know what it is) what it is [so he makes something up] and I bet you he'd say something like "oh it's kindof like MP3 but newer and better. It supports 1080p HD-Audio" [customer nods as if to let you think that they understand].
In this case having a name that doesn't make you think of a common audio compression standard would be helpful.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why let the patent mongers lead us around by the nose?
Instead, once a free replacement is available for h.264, then we'll have a complete solution that the industry can follow. (or if the patents on it are ruled invalid)
You seem to think that the patent terms are "reasonable" which shows your shortsightedness on this issue.
Not just pirates (Score:2)
Similarly, those asshats at Sony couldn't be bothered to implement MPEG-4 containers, so they invented "AVCHD", which is MPEG-4 codecs in an MPEG-2 container.
Re:Too late ? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
NO! There are ones in development though... (Score:5, Interesting)
They are Snow, which is a experimental codec being developed out of the FFMPEG project, and there is Dirac which is being developed by the BBC as a open standard for web-based HD content.
Both of these are based on 'wavelett' style technology which is something that is fairly unique about them. The downside though is that Snow, while being much simplier then Dirac, suffers from a lack of development and stability (not crash-iness, but change-iness). Dirac is not mature enough for use. Both of them still use WAY to much CPU to be usefull currently, but both offer possibilities of compression and quality that surpass even H.264.
Theora is completely open, having the benifit from patent donated to open source by a corporation for their codecs, but it suffers from high CPU utilization and a very serious lack of visual quality.
It's not like with Ogg vs MP3 or Flac vs whatever were those guys offer good compression, quality, and lower cpu usage as well as being open source. With Theora vs Mpeg4-related stuff (Xvid/Divx, h.264. AVC, etc) it is not realy in the same ballpack. It is more closely related to Mpeg1 in quality.
And when I mean 'quality' I mean the ability to provide high quality image at high compression, which is the whole point behind things like Theora and H.264.
Already Linux and Free software people have a good H.264 implimentation thanks to the FFmpeg people. Their mpeg4 Divx-stuff is already very high quality.. much better then anything from Xvid or Divx, they have the beginnings of very good H.264 support and have decoding and encoding speeds that rival the best propriatory codecs aviable. They need to fill out some of the H.264 features, but if this is true that H.264 is truly usable in Free software environment, then I expect that development will very quickly take off as the people become aware of this and Linux distros will want to jump on the opportunity to provide world-class HD support!
This should also pave the way for future adoption of Dirac and maybe Snow since then the use of ffmpeg libs should increase in both Linux and Windows-land. Once people get used to it and programs start shipping with ffmpeg libs then this will make it easier for these projects to gain acceptance as ffmpeg is multi-codec and will include these open source technologies as they come out.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually 'wavelet' [wikipedia.org] is the correct spelling (sorry to be pedantic). But you are right that wavelet applications are an interesting topic.
In short, wavelets are like Fourier transforms, but they have a location, not just a frequency. Like with the FT, you can represent spatial data by wavelets, and the localization aspect turns out to be useful in practice, in particular for codecs (but it is also useful from a theoretical aspect, wavelets were - per
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Re:NO! There are ones in development though... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:NO! There are ones in development though... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Free ... of which patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't this make H.264 only free of the two patents held by Qualcomm? There has to be dozens and dozens of other patents used as AFAIK H.264 is just a profile (AVC) of MPEG-4?
And afaik again, MPEG-4 is very far from being patent encumbered.
Re:Free ... of which patents? (Score:5, Informative)
True. There are 20 corporations [mpegla.com] participating in the MPEG LA patent portfolio for H.264. Each of these corporations believe they have patents essential to impliment H.264(here's a long list(pdf) [mpegla.com])) and are collecting licensing fees from hundred of licensees [mpegla.com].
Parent
Re:Free ... of which patents? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Free ... of which patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Over-the-air free broadcast - There are no royalties for over-the-air free broadcast AVC video to markets of 100,000 or fewer households. For over-the-air free broadcast AVC video to markets of greater than 100,000 households, royalties are $10,000 per year per local market service (by a transmitter or transmitter simultaneously with repeaters, e.g., multiple transmitters serving one station).
Internet broadcast (non-subscription, not title-by-title) - Since this market is still developing, no royalties will be payable for internet broadcast services (non-subscription, not title-by-title) during the initial term of the license (which runs through December 31, 2010) and then shall not exceed the over-the-air free broadcast TV encoding fee during the renewal term.
So, nothing is owed between now and 2010 on the Intenet. However, the fee could be $ 10K per channel after then; if that's the case, then there will be trouble in 2011. Also note that it is unclear if the VOD is per download (in which case it is quite high) or per title offered (in which case, quite low).
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Re:Free ... of which patents? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Free ... of which patents? (Score:4, Informative)
The article doesn't have many details, but since Qualcomm is (or at least used to be) an IC manufacturer among other things and Broadcom's infringing products are ICs, these patents could easily be specific only to a specific method of implementing H.264 in hardware. The MPEG-4 LA covers licensing of patents that cover the algorithm, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are additional patents out there covering specific unique implementations of H.264. i.e. the MPEG4-LA covers the MPEG-4 related patents that you absolutely can't avoid infringing if you create a compliant MPEG-4 implementation, but not necessarily implementation-specific patents.
It reminds me a lot of the article a few weeks ago where a university was suing some manufacturers of Bluetooth chipsets. Everyone on Slashdot went postal with comments like "How could they patent Bluetooth. Prior art! Prior art!", when in fact the patent was not in ANY way Bluetooth-specific at all but for a method of designing a low-cost RF receiver, a method which a number of Bluetooth silicon manufacturers happened to use in their receiver designs.
My suspicion (the article doesn't have enough details) is that this court decision has absolutely zero effect on anyone who implements H.264 in software as there is a good chance they weren't even infringing in the first place.
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Re: (Score:2)
A trial court decision is "the law" only for the parties involved. Other courts might consider the case to be an influential decision, but are in no way required to follow it to the sam
Did I Read the Right Article? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Did I Read the Right Article? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Did I Read the Right Article? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's to the first post to snipe at the editors and (hopefully) get modded way up :)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070
this is the correct link from the original source.
Slashdot editors: Only pretending to be editors? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is more of the real story Broadcom sees win for 'H.264' industry [signonsandiego.com] (January 27, 2007). However, the article does NOT say that the patents were invalidated; they have not been invalidated.
This statement from the Slashdot story is incorrect: "This ruling clears the way for H.264 to become a widely adopted open standard." If that were true, it would be important, but it is not true, for three reasons: 1) The patents have not been invalidated (yet). 2) There can be an appeal. 3) There are other patents.
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Ruling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong Article (Score:5, Informative)
Broadcom sees win for 'H.264' industry
By Kathryn Balint and David Washburn
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
January 27, 2007
After just six hours of deliberating, a federal jury found yesterday that chip maker Broadcom did not infringe on two patents held by San Diego-based Qualcomm and determined in two advisory votes that Qualcomm had withheld key information from a standards-making body and the patent office.
Union-Tribune file photo
San Diego-based Qualcomm lost a round in federal court yesterday against Southern California chip-making rival Broadcom.
Qualcomm, which accused Irvine-based Broadcom of infringing on two video-compression patents, was seeking $8.3 million in damages for one of the patents. It did not seek any damages for the other patent.
The San Diego jury's unanimous decision is a win for manufacturers that comply with the same video-compression standard as that used by Broadcom.
Qualcomm had argued that one of the two patents at issue was incorporated into the H.264 industry standard used in millions of consumer devices, such as high-definition DVD players and Apple video iPods.
"We're grateful for the jury's verdict - a resounding victory for Broadcom," said David Rosmann, vice president of intellectual property litigation for the company. "This is a victory not just for Broadcom, but for the entire H.264 industry."
Qualcomm had little to lose in the case but everything to win.
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If it had prevailed in its patent-infringement claims, it potentially could have asked courts to ban products that used the industry standard or sought royalty payments from their manufacturers.
Yesterday's decision does not affect Qualcomm's core business of licensing cell phone technology.
A loss for Broadcom, however, could have resulted in the ban of some of its chips and could have cost the company possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in future royalty payments.
The U.S. District Court case was just one of seven lawsuits between the two companies scheduled for trial this year.
"There certainly was a significant upside potential for us, but it was all upside, no downside," said Qualcomm executive vice president and general counsel Lou Lupin. "For Broadcom, it was all downside, no upside. It probably won't have any impact on us one way or the other. It's just the latest round in a series of battles."
The speed with which the nine-member jury returned the verdict was stunning, particularly for a case that involved more than 40 hours of testimony and evidence akin to a graduate-level college course on video compression.
Jury foreman David Ingraham, a Carmel Valley resident and retired vice president of finance and planning for McGraw-Hill, said the quick verdict came about because each jury member entered deliberations with a strong understanding of the evidence.
"I'm not going to say we were all electrical engineers, because we aren't," Ingraham said. "But people listened carefully to the testimony and took good notes - and it came down overwhelmingly on one side."
The jury did find that the two Qualcomm patents in question in the case were valid, a loss to Broadcom, which had argued otherwise.
One of the biggest blows to Qualcomm came in the form of advisory votes, sought by the judge, in which the jury questioned Qualcomm's integrity.
In one advisory vote, the jury found "clear and convincing evidence" that Qualcomm had withheld previous scientific studies on video-compression from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office when applying for one of the patents in question. The jury's advisory vote said that the patent is "unenforceable due to Qualcomm's inequitable conduct in the patent application process."
In the second advisory vote, the jury found that Q
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So the summary would be: The Slashdot article is wrong, there are plenty of patents in H.264. And Qualcomm owns two patents. However, they blew it on the first patent because they withheld information in their patent that the patent examiner would probably have liked to see, so they cannot enforce that patent. And they blew it on the second patent, because they knew exactly that the patent would end up in the H.264 Standard and they didn't tell anybody about it - so everyone im
H.264 vs GSM, G.729? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
I don't see how H.264 is related to GSM or
Re: (Score:2)
Another reason patents don't make a lot of sense (Score:3, Interesting)
Patents are designed by and implemented by attorneys. They're the beneficiaries of this system, not the public nor the inventor. The inventors and public just end up getting screwed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
mpeg-4 part 2 has been around for years (ie. xvid and divx)
Re:H.264 = MPEG-4 (Score:5, Informative)
No. H.264 is only PART of MPEG 4
H.264 = MPEG 4 part 10 = MPEG 4 AVC
MPEG 4 is a how framework that comprises
The guys who wrote the standards (H.264) expected that one of the profile (baseline profile) would be patent free anyway
Anyway if this jugement could free up more profile, it would be great
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
This is not any different from any other Qualcomm behaviour regarding the standards process. All I can say - a good way to start, can we have more of that.
In fact, let's hope that the Nokia 3G lawsuit and a few others that are in the queue will be decided the same way.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You could have said "otherwise known as MPEG-4 AVC" and you would have been more precise, but "MPEG-4" in general also includes DivX/XviD, 3ivx, Nero Digital, and Quicktime. Obviously the article is not referring to any of those codecs.