MPEG LA

Key takeaways

MPEG LA belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect MPEG LA to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of MPEG LA from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

MPEG LA was an American company based in Denver, Colorado that licensed patent pools covering essential patents required for use of the MPEG-2, MPEG-4, IEEE 1394, VC-1, ATSC, MVC, MPEG-2 Systems, AVC/H.264 and HEVC standards. Via Licensing Corp acquired MPEG LA in April 2023 and formed a new patent pool administration company called Via Licensing Alliance.

History MPEG LA started operations in July 1997 immediately after receiving a Department of Justice Business Review Letter. During formation of the MPEG-2 standard, a working group of companies that participated in the formation of the MPEG-2 standard recognized that the biggest challenge to adoption was efficient access to essential patents owned by many patent owners. That ultimately led to a group of various MPEG-2 patent owners to form MPEG LA, which in turn created the first modern-day patent pool as a solution. The majority of patents underlying MPEG-2 technology were owned by three companies: Sony (311 patents), Thomson (198 patents) and Mitsubishi Electric (119 patents). In June 2012, MPEG LA announced a call for patents essential to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. In September 2012, MPEG LA launched Librassay, which makes diagnostic patent rights from some of the world's leading research institutions available to everyone through a single license. Organizations which have included patents in Librassay include Johns Hopkins University; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; National Institutes of Health (NIH); Partners HealthCare; The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University; The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania; The University of California, San Francisco; and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). On September 29, 2014, the MPEG LA announced their HEVC license which covers the patents from 23 companies. The license is US$0.20 per HEVC product after the first 100,000 units each year with an annual cap. The license has been expanded to include the profiles in version 2 of the HEVC standard. On March 5, 2015, the MPEG LA announced their DisplayPort license which is US$0.20 per DisplayPort product. In April 2023, in what is thought to be the first time that two pool administrators have merged into one, Via Licensing Corp acquired MPEG LA and formed a new patent pool administrator called Via Licensing Alliance. Via President Heath Hoglund will serve as president of the new company. MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn will serve as a Via LA advisor.

Criticism MPEG LA has claimed that video codecs such as Theora and VP8 infringe on patents owned by its licensors, without disclosing the affected patent or patents. They then called out for “any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the VP8 video codec”. In April 2013, Google and MPEG LA announced an agreement covering the VP8 video format. In May 2010, Nero AG filed an antitrust suit against MPEG LA, claiming it "unlawfully extended its patent pools by adding non-essential patents to the MPEG-2 patent pool" and has been inconsistent in charging royalty fees. The United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissed the suit with prejudice on November 29, 2010. David Balto, who is a former policy director at the Federal Trade Commission, has used the MPEG-2 patent pool as an example of why patent pools need more scrutiny so that they do not suppress innovation. The MPEG-2 patent pool began with 100 patents in 1997 and since then additional patents were added. The MPEG-2 license agreement states that if possible the license fee will not increase when new patents are added. The MPEG-2 license agreement stated that MPEG-2 royalties must be paid when there is one or more active patents in either the country of manufacture or the country of sale. The original MPEG-2 license rate was US$4 for a decoding license, US$4 for an encoding license and US$6.00 for encode-decode consumer product. A criticism of the MPEG-2 patent pool is that even though the number of patents decreased from 1,048 to 416 by June 2013 the license fee did not decrease with the expiration rate of MPEG-2 patents. For products from January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2009 royalties were US$2.50 for a decoding license, US$2.50 for an encoding license and US$2.50 for encode-decode consumer product license. Since January 1, 2010, MPEG-2 patent pool royalties were US$2.00 for a decoding license, US$2.00 for an encoding license and US$2.00 for encode-decode consumer product.

H.264/MPEG-4 AVC licensors

The following organizations hold one or more patents in MPEG LA's H.264/AVC patent pool.

HEVC licensors

The following organizations hold one or more patents in the HEVC patent pool.

VC-1 licensors

The following organizations hold one or more patents in the VC-1 patent pool (as of November 26, 2024).

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with MPEG LA

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what MPEG LA claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to MPEG LA before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about MPEG LA ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of MPEG LA

In research: MPEG LA appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses MPEG LA in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: MPEG LA is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Companies based in Denver, MPEG, Open standards covered by patents, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for MPEG LA outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study MPEG LA in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what MPEG LA means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain MPEG LA out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is MPEG LA in simple terms?

MPEG LA was an American company based in Denver, Colorado that licensed patent pools covering essential patents required for use of the MPEG-2, MPEG-4, IEEE 1394, VC-1, ATSC, MVC, MPEG-2 Systems, AVC/H.264 and HEVC standards. Via Licensing Corp acquired MPEG LA in April 2023 and formed a new patent…

Why does MPEG LA matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study MPEG LA?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on MPEG LA.