Misplaced Pages

#169830

36-730: The Sewing Machine Combination or the Sewing Machine Trust was the first patent pool in US history. It was formed by the "Albany Agreement" of 24 October 1856 and lasted until its last patent expired in 1877. It existed for the purpose of reducing the licensing and litigation overhead being imposed by the patent thicket known as the Sewing Machine War . Prior to the Sewing Machine Combination, companies could purchase rights from Elias Howe for

72-404: A $ 5 royalty for each machine sold in the U.S. and $ 1 for exported machines. Interests only were pooled, prices were not set, and the market was open to fair competition, which allowed companies to concentrate on manufacturing and marketing the machines, rather than litigation. Of the nine patents pooled, three were particularly crucial: the lockstitch , the four-motion feed, and the combination of

108-527: A lawyer and president of Grover & Baker, proposed that, rather than squander their profits on litigation, they pool their patents. This was the first patent pool, a process which enables the production of complicated machines without legal battles over patent rights. In 1917, the two major patent holders for airplanes, the Wright Company and the Curtiss Company, had effectively blocked

144-523: A license fee that does not change based on the number of patents that have expired. Since the 1990s, patent pools have been viewed by U.S. regulatory authorities in a positive light. In 1995, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released the “Antitrust Guidelines for the Licensing of Intellectual Property” which stated that the pooling of patents may have “…pro-competitive benefits”. The Antitrust Division of

180-531: A private patent licensing organization, had acquired rights from over 20 corporations and one university to license a patent pool of approximately 640 worldwide patents, which it claimed were "essential" to use of MPEG-2 technology. The patent holders included Sony , Mitsubishi Electric , Fujitsu , Panasonic , Scientific Atlanta , Columbia University , Philips , General Instrument , Canon , Hitachi , JVC Kenwood , LG Electronics , NTT , Samsung , Sanyo , Sharp and Toshiba . Where Software patentability

216-461: A royalty fee of $ 25 for every machine sold. In 1856, president of the Grover & Baker company, Orlando B. Potter , worked with Howe, Wheeler & Wilson , and Isaac Singer 's I. M. Singer and Company to pool their patents and agree to terms of use. The requirements were: at least 24 manufacturers were to be licensed; the founding companies would equally share the profits; and Howe would receive

252-660: A vertical needle with horizontal sewing surface. In addition to its four member companies, dozens of other companies licensed its patents, for which they paid royalties and submitted annual production reports. Twenty years after the Combination expired, only two of the companies remained in business. Patent pool In 1856, sewing machine manufacturers Grover & Baker , Singer , and Wheeler & Wilson , all accusing each other of patent infringement , met in Albany, New York to pursue their suits. Orlando B. Potter ,

288-475: Is backwards-compatible with MPEG-1, allowing MPEG-1 audio decoders to decode the two main stereo components of the presentation. This extension is called MPEG Multichannel or MPEG-2 BC (backwards-compatible). MPEG-2 Part 3 also defines additional bit rates and sampling rates for MPEG-1 Audio Layers I, II, and III. This extension is known as MPEG-2 LSF (low sampling frequencies), since the new sampling rates are one-half multiples (16, 22.05 and 24 kHz) of

324-505: Is in some ways less complicated than its predecessor, MPEG-1 Part 3 Audio Layer 3 , in that it does not have the hybrid filter bank. It supports from 1 to 48 channels at sampling rates of 8 to 96 kHz, with multichannel, multilingual, and multiprogram capabilities. AAC is also defined in MPEG-4 Part 3 . MPEG-2 standards are published as "Parts". Each part covers a certain aspect of the whole specification. MPEG-2 evolved out of

360-565: Is still widely used, for example in over-the-air digital television broadcasting and in the DVD-Video standard. MPEG-2 is widely used as the format of digital television signals that are broadcast by terrestrial (over-the-air), cable , and direct broadcast satellite TV systems. It also specifies the format of movies and other programs that are distributed on DVD and similar discs. TV stations , TV receivers , DVD players, and other equipment are often designed to this standard. MPEG-2

396-432: Is supported, Blu-ray does not support MPEG-2 audio (parts 3 and 7). Additionally, the container format used on Blu-ray discs is an MPEG-2 transport stream, regardless of which audio and video codecs are used. As of January 3, 2024, MPEG-2 patents have expired worldwide, with the exception of only Malaysia, where the last patent is expected to expire in 2035. The last US patent expired on February 23, 2018. MPEG LA ,

SECTION 10

#1732780003170

432-567: Is the core of most digital television and DVD formats, it does not completely specify them. Regional institutions can adapt it to their needs by restricting and augmenting aspects of the standard. See Video profiles and levels . MPEG-2 Part 1 (ISO/IEC 13818-1 and ITU-T Rec. H.222.0 ), titled Systems , defines two distinct, but related, container formats . One is the transport stream , a data packet format designed to transmit one data packet in four ATM data packets for streaming digital video and audio over fixed or mobile transmission mediums, where

468-456: Is to their collective benefit. For example, the insurance industry pools claims data to collectively reduce risk; the catalog sales industry pools sales data to better model their customers; the auto industry collaborates to standardize components; and in the software industry some companies actively contribute to open-source projects. Patent pools do not eliminate risk, they only temper it. Patent holders (including other patent pools) outside

504-538: Is upheld and patents have not expired (only Malaysia), the use of MPEG-2 requires the payment of licensing fees to the patent holders. Other patents were licensed by Audio MPEG, Inc. The development of the standard itself took less time than the patent negotiations. Patent pooling between essential and peripheral patent holders in the MPEG-2 pool was the subject of a study by the University of Wisconsin. According to

540-426: Is used on Blu-ray discs, AVCHD on re-writable DVDs and HDV on compact flash cards. Program stream files include VOB on DVDs and Enhanced VOB on the short lived HD DVD . The standard MPEG-2 transport stream contains packets of 188 bytes. M2TS prepends each packet with 4 bytes containing a 2-bit copy permission indicator and 30-bit timestamp. ISO authorized the " SMPTE Registration Authority, LLC" as

576-583: The DVB standard: Allowed resolutions for SDTV : For HDTV: The ATSC A/53 standard used in the United States, uses MPEG-2 video at the Main Profile @ High Level (MP@HL), with additional restrictions such as the maximum bitrate of 19.39 Mbit/s for broadcast television and 38.8 Mbit/s for cable television, 4:2:0 chroma subsampling format, and mandatory colorimetry information. ATSC allows

612-506: The MPEG-2 , MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264 video coding standards, and the DVD6C pool. The MPEG-2 patent pool has also been criticized because by 2015 more than 90% of the MPEG-2 patents will have expired but as long as there are one or more active patents in the MPEG-2 patent pool in either the country of manufacture or the country of sale the MPEG-2 license agreement requires that licensees pay

648-594: The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) domain. The RFID Consortium picked Via Licensing to administer its patent pool in September 2006. As in these examples many industries could not function without patent pools since the coordination costs (risk, negotiation, etc.) would otherwise be too high. Patent pools are only one example of cases where members of an otherwise competitive industry join in common cause to create some resource that

684-479: The DOJ later issued a letter in support of the MPEG-2 pool. However, stipulations exist to ensure pools do not function anti-competitively. As required by the DOJ, patents in the pool must be essential , non-substitutable and the owners must maintain the right to individually license their patents. In addition, the DOJ may monitor the royalty rates collected by the firm. MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as

720-451: The MPEG-2 licensing agreement any use of MPEG-2 technology in countries with active patents (Malaysia) is subject to royalties . MPEG-2 encoders and decoders are subject to $ 0.35 per unit. Also, any packaged medium (DVDs/Data Streams) is subject to licence fees according to length of recording/broadcast. The royalties were previously priced higher but were lowered at several points, most recently on January 1, 2018. An earlier criticism of

756-412: The United States and elsewhere. The DVD-Video standard uses MPEG-2 video, but imposes some restrictions: HDV is a format for recording and playback of high-definition MPEG-2 video on a DV cassette tape. MOD and TOD are recording formats for use in consumer digital file-based camcorders. XDCAM is a professional file-based video recording format. Application-specific restrictions on MPEG-2 video in

SECTION 20

#1732780003170

792-591: The beginning and the end of the stream may not be identified, such as radio frequency , cable and linear recording mediums, examples of which include ATSC / DVB / ISDB / SBTVD broadcasting, and HDV recording on tape. The other is the program stream , an extended version of the MPEG-1 container format with less overhead than transport stream . Program stream is designed for random access storage mediums such as hard disk drives , optical discs and flash memory . Transport stream file formats include M2TS , which

828-530: The building of new airplanes, which were desperately needed as the United States was entering World War I. The U.S. government, as a result of a recommendation of a committee formed by Franklin D. Roosevelt , then Assistant Secretary of the Navy , pressured the industry to form a patent pool , the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association . In August 2005, a patent pool was formed by about 20 companies active in

864-505: The characteristics of the underlying private data. MPEG-2 Part 2 (ISO/IEC 13818-2 and ITU-T Rec. H.262), titled Video , is similar to the previous MPEG-1 Part 2 standard, but adds support for interlaced video , the format used by analog broadcast TV systems. MPEG-2 video is not optimized for low bit rates , especially less than 1 Mbit/s at standard-definition resolutions. All standards-compliant MPEG-2 Video decoders are fully capable of playing back MPEG-1 Video streams conforming to

900-477: The constrained parameters bitstream (CPB) limits. With some enhancements, MPEG-2 Video and Systems are also used in some HDTV transmission systems, and is the standard format for over-the-air ATSC digital television. MPEG-2 introduces new audio encoding methods compared to MPEG-1: MPEG-2 Part 3 (ISO/IEC 13818-3), titled Audio , enhances MPEG-1 's audio by allowing the coding of audio programs with more than two channels , up to 5.1 multichannel. This method

936-627: The decoder to interlace them and perform 3:2 pulldown before display. This allows broadcasters to switch between 60 Hz interlaced (news, soap operas) and 24 Hz progressive (prime-time) content without ending the MPEG-2 sequence and introducing several seconds of delay as the TV switches formats. This is the reason why 1080p30 and 1080p24 sequences allowed by the ATSC specification are not used in practice. The 1080-line formats are encoded with 1920 × 1088 pixel luma matrices and 960 × 540 chroma matrices, but

972-553: The first MPEG-2 SAVI (System/Audio/Video) decoder in 1995. .mpg, .mpeg, .m2v, .mp2, . mp3 are some of a number of filename extensions used for MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 audio and video file formats. File extension MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III ) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in

1008-450: The following video resolutions, aspect ratios, and frame/field rates: ATSC standard A/63 defines additional resolutions and aspect rates for 50 Hz (PAL) signal. The ATSC specification and MPEG-2 allow the use of progressive frames, even within an interlaced video sequence. For example, a station that transmits 1080i60 video sequence can use a coding method where those 60 fields are coded with 24 progressive frames and metadata instructs

1044-485: The last 8 lines are discarded by the MPEG-2 decoding and display process. ATSC A/72 is the newest revision of ATSC standards for digital television, which allows the use of H.264/AVC video coding format and 1080p60 signal. MPEG-2 audio was a contender for the ATSC standard during the DTV " Grand Alliance " shootout, but lost out to Dolby AC-3 . Technical features of MPEG-2 in ATSC are also valid for ISDB-T , except that in

1080-500: The main TS has aggregated a second program for mobile devices compressed in MPEG-4 H.264 AVC for video and AAC -LC for audio, mainly known as 1seg . MPEG-2 is one of the three supported video coding formats supported by Blu-ray Disc. Early Blu-ray releases typically used MPEG-2 video, but recent releases are almost always in H.264 or occasionally VC-1 . Only MPEG-2 video (MPEG-2 part 2)

1116-406: The pool can still create cost and risk for the industry. While it is rare for a patent pool to indemnify licensees, a pool does help to assure a common interest will emerge should one member be accused of infringement by a third party. Flaws in the design of the pool's governance can create the risk that one member can break the common cause of the group. Examples of well-known such cases include

Sewing Machine Combination - Misplaced Pages Continue

1152-423: The registration authority for MPEG-2 format identifiers. The registration descriptor of MPEG-2 transport is provided by ISO/IEC 13818-1 in order to enable users of the standard to unambiguously carry data when its format is not necessarily a recognized international standard. This provision will permit the MPEG-2 transport standard to carry all types of data while providing for a method of unambiguous identification of

1188-460: The sampling rates defined in MPEG-1 (32, 44.1 and 48 kHz). MPEG-2 Part 7 (ISO/IEC 13818-7), titled Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) specifies a rather different, non-backwards-compatible audio format. This format is most commonly called Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), but was originally called MPEG-2 NBC (non-backwards-compatible). AAC is more efficient than the previous MPEG audio standards, and

1224-566: The shortcomings of MPEG-1. MPEG-1's known weaknesses: Sakae Okubo of NTT was the ITU-T coordinator for developing the H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 video coding standard and the requirements chairman in MPEG for the MPEG-2 set of standards. The majority of patents underlying MPEG-2 technology are owned by three companies: Sony (311 patents), Thomson (198 patents) and Mitsubishi Electric (119 patents). Hyundai Electronics (now SK Hynix ) developed

1260-547: Was defined by the ITU ) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission bandwidth. While MPEG-2 is not as efficient as newer standards such as H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC , backwards compatibility with existing hardware and software means it

1296-577: Was the second of several standards developed by the Moving Pictures Expert Group ( MPEG ) and is an international standard ( ISO / IEC 13818 , titled Information technology — Generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information ). Parts 1 and 2 of MPEG-2 were developed in a collaboration with ITU-T , and they have a respective catalog number in the ITU-T Recommendation Series. While MPEG-2

#169830