Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#2Despite integrating AV1 into their newest upcoming chipset, Qualcomm seems to be not all too interested in the associated licensing obligations.
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#3Grabs popcorn
It will be interesting to see the fallout on this one. Will Qualcomm require licensing for AV1 implementers? How does this prevent AOM from retracting access to patents Qualcomm needs from other companies? Did Qualcomm literally approach every other company with private negotiations? And so on...
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#4Grabs popcorn It will be interesting to see the fallout on this one. Will Qualcomm require licensing for AV1 implementers? How does this prevent AOM from retracting access to patents Qualcomm needs from other companies? Did Qualcomm literally approach every other company with private negotiations? And so on...
Just one more AOM outsider (and major player in the video codec space) publicly stating that their patents in fact do read onto AV1. I wonder what patents AOM tried to sidestep in AV1 design if not the ones from Qualcomm, Dolby, Ericsson, InterDigital, Philips and Toshiba :)
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#5They did something similar with the Opus audio codec:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/1520/
AV1 has some kind of patent-NATO thing where if you attack someone over AV1 patents they counter-attack with all their other patents, but does this count as an attack or would it only kick in if they sue someone?
> 1.3. Defensive Termination. If any Licensee, its Affiliates, or its agents initiates patent litigation or files, maintains, or voluntarily participates in a lawsuit against another entity or any person asserting that any Implementation infringes Necessary Claims, any patent licenses granted under this License directly to the Licensee are immediately terminated as of the date of the initiation of action unless 1) that suit was in response to a corresponding suit regarding an Implementation first brought against an initiating entity, or 2) that suit was brought to enforce the terms of this License (including intervention in a third-party action by a Licensee).
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#6Grabs popcorn It will be interesting to see the fallout on this one. Will Qualcomm require licensing for AV1 implementers? How does this prevent AOM from retracting access to patents Qualcomm needs from other companies? Did Qualcomm literally approach every other company with private negotiations? And so on...
Qualcomm already needs a license for implementing a hardware decoder in it's chips.
That license requires making their AV1 patents free of use
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#7Grabs popcorn It will be interesting to see the fallout on this one. Will Qualcomm require licensing for AV1 implementers? How does this prevent AOM from retracting access to patents Qualcomm needs from other companies? Did Qualcomm literally approach every other company with private negotiations? And so on...
It's basically Qualcomm's legal department trying to keep their patents; they can't actualy do anything to other AV1 implementers now that they have implemented it in Snapdragon 8 gen 2. If they try to sue let's say samsung, they will be sued back (most likely) by the whole AOM who hold way more av1 patents than Qualcomm. Thier patents are just marginaly more valuable now as they aren't shared between all of AOM. Essentially they are screwing everyone else over that contributed.
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#8This might be why they were so slow to add hardware av1 decoding to their SoC. I guess legal compromised and said "you can implement av1, but we're still keeping the patents" and now we're in this situation.
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#9In 99.99% of cases for Smartphones, you are going to sign and pay Qualcomm for all of its license anyway. Including all patent in 3G/4G and 5G, as well as other wireless tech, Image, Sensor, Battery and of course including Video Codec patents.
What is interesting ( to me at least ), their new Video Engine IP in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 did not include H.266 / VVC.
Re: Qualcomm statement regarding AOM licensing shenanigans wrt AV1 [pdf]
#10In 99.99% of cases for Smartphones, you are going to sign and pay Qualcomm for all of its license anyway. Including all patent in 3G/4G and 5G, as well as other wireless tech, Image, Sensor, Battery and of course including Video Codec patents. What is interesting ( to me at least ), their new Video Engine IP in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 did not include H.266 / VVC.
Agree that's odd. I initially thought they'd delayed AV1 integration to match the VVC timeline but it seems the QC engineers are just generally slower than the ones working at Mediatek...