G.723.1 and G.729 licensing
Andrew Chittenden WAVE-SP
Perhaps we ought to rename this group Voice over Intellectual Property!
What's the position with completely independently developed code that can
interwork with G.723.1 and G.729? Is that allowed to given away free? Or do
the intellectual property holders have a right to monies anyway?
Rgds, Andy Chittenden
Email: achi...@madge.com Fax: +44 1753 661011
Multimedia Development, Madge Networks Ltd
Sefton Park, Bells Hill, Stoke Poges, Slough SL2 4JS, England
Henning Schulzrinne
Andrew Chittenden WAVE-SP wrote:
>
> Perhaps we ought to rename this group Voice over Intellectual Property!
Except that we don't have a voice over intellectual property...
>
> What's the position with completely independently developed code that can
> interwork with G.723.1 and G.729? Is that allowed to given away free? Or do
> the intellectual property holders have a right to monies anyway?
The short answer: a distinct 'no'. This is not copyright (expression)
[although the code is obviously copyrighted], but patents (ideas). You
do have an option: you can wait 17 or so years for the patents to
expire... Building stuff outside the US won't help either, in case you
are wondering.
Also, the likelihood of developing new codecs similar in performance to
G.723.1 or G.729 that do not infringe on at least one of their patents
(or some other patent) is highly unlikely. Cryptography and audio/video
coding are probably two of the most patent-riddled areas relevant to
communication protocols.
People have complained a lot about the cryptography (RSA, D-H, etc.)
patents. At least they applied only to the US and one could get a
reference library (RSAREF) free for noncommercial use. Same with DES and
IDEA. PGP wouldn't exist without this.
Henning Schulzrinne
A few people have pointed out that, basically, G.723.1 and G.729 have
similar licensing costs (see sample explanation from Fred Burg, below).
However, whether it's a 100k or 220k (or a total of $450k for both
codecs), this puts it way out of reach of most any academic research
organization that wants to distribute their applications for free.
Fred Burg writes:
Although I don't have the documents here, to get G.723.1 requires 2
things:
- the $100K gets you licenses from 4 of the 8 IPR holders;
- to get licenses from the other 4, you can:
- negotiate separately with each of them (not sure of who they all
are
but includes ATT and Lucent); or
- you can buy software from Lucent for $120K and they will also
indemnify you against any claims brought by the other 3 of this
group
this was stated in a separate paper presented at the VOIP meeting.
So with this path, you also need to spend $220K.
Feel free to send this email to whomever you think appropriate.
Fred Burg fred...@att.com 908-576-4322 FAX:908-576-4317
--
Henning Schulzrinne email: schul...@cs.columbia.edu
Dept. of Computer Science phone: +1 212 939-7042
Columbia University fax: +1 212 666-0140
New York, NY 10027 URL: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs