Standards: Appendix J - MPEG-4 Licensing & Patents
![](/cache/uploads/content_images/Standards_Part_1_789_500_70_s.jpg)
Here is a list which shows whether each of the 34 parts of the MPEG-4 standard is encumbered with a patent.
This is an Appendix to our series of articles on Standards.
Read carefully where a standard describes whether patents apply to its use. It is usually very near the front. The authors may not have known which patents apply when the standard was drafted and the descriptions may be incomplete. It is worth the time and effort to research this before committing to the use of a standard to avoid license fees later on.
Details of the patents known to ISO are described in a downloadable spreadsheet but there may be other patents that they do not know about until the owner declares their interest in the standards:
http://www.iso.org/patents
This list of MPEG-4 parts indicates whether they are encumbered by patents:
Part | Content | Patents |
---|---|---|
1 | Systems | Yes |
2 | Visual | Yes |
3 | Audio | Yes |
4 | Conformance testing | Yes |
5 | Reference software | Yes |
6 | DMIF | Yes |
7 | Reference software for A/V objects | No |
8 | Carriage over IP | No |
9 | Reference hardware | No |
10 | AVC | Yes |
11 | BIFS (Scene description) | Yes |
12 | ISO Base Media File Format | Yes |
13 | IPMP | No |
14 | MP4 file format | Yes |
15 | Carriage of NAL format video | Yes |
16 | AFX - Animation Framework | Yes |
17 | Streaming Text Format | No |
18 | Font compression and streaming | Yes |
19 | Synthesised texture stream | Yes |
20 | LASeR (Lightweight scene description) | Yes |
21 | MPEG-J extension for rendering | No |
22 | Open Font Format (OFF) | Yes |
23 | Symbolic Music Representation (SMR) | No |
24 | Audio and systems interaction | No |
25 | 3D-Graphics compression model | Yes |
26 | Audio conformance testing | No |
27 | 3D-Graphics conformance testing | Yes |
28 | Composite font representation | No |
29 | Web Video Coding (WVC) | Yes |
30 | Timed text and other visual overlays in ISOBMFF | No |
31 | Video coding for browsers | Yes |
32 | File format reference software and conformance | No |
33 | Internet Video Coding (IVC) | Yes |
34 | Bitstream Syntactic Description Language (SDL) | No |
The list will evolve because patents don't last forever (typically 20 years) and submarine patents do not surface right away. Almost all of the patents that encumber MPEG-4 Part 2 (Visual) have expired. The patents on AVC will take a little longer but will all have expired by 2030. HEVC will take longer still but eventually will be patent free.
Part of a series supported by
You might also like...
Future Technologies: Timing Asynchronous Infrastructures
We continue our series considering technologies of the near future and how they might transform how we think about broadcast, with a technical discussion of why future IP infrastructures may well take a more fluid approach to timing planes.
Standards: Part 13 - Exploring MPEG4-Part 10 - H.264/AVC
The H.264/AVC codec has been very successful. Here we dig deeper into how profiles and levels work to facilitate deployment of delivery systems and receiving client-player designs.
The Meaning Of Metadata
Metadata is increasingly used to automate media management, from creation and acquisition to increasingly granular delivery channels and everything in-between. There’s nothing much new about metadata—it predated digital media by decades—but it is poised to become pivotal in …
Designing IP Broadcast Systems: Remote Control
Why mixing video and audio UDP/IP streams alongside time sensitive TCP/IP flows can cause many challenges for remote control applications such as a camera OCP, as the switches may be configured to prioritize the UDP feeds, or vice…
Future Technologies: Autoscaling Infrastructures
We continue our series considering technologies of the near future and how they might transform how we think about broadcast, with a discussion of the concepts, possibilities and constraints of autoscaling IP based infrastructures.