Patent Call for a New Digital Rights Management System

By Paolo d'Amato

Intellectual Property Rights is a key consideration in today's standardisation world and naturally the field of audio and video coding / decoding, such as MP3 and MPEG is no exception. Digital rights management is an additional key element in today’s digital world.

The Digital Media Project (DMP) is a non-profit organization devoted to developing worldwide standards for music, video and other creative works that are digitally recorded and transmitted. Such standards allow the rights of creators to be compensated for their works, allow the public to fully enjoy the benefits of digital recordings, and allow other businesses to provide products and services consistent with these principles and the Digital Media Manifesto.

DMP was founded by Mr. Leonardo Chiariglione, who developed worldwide standards for digital audio and video coding, such as MP3 and MPEG, while chairing the working group of the International Standards Organization ISO/IEC. In April 2005, DMP produced a technical Specification for a Platform for Interoperable Digital Rights Management, for which it would be beneficial to establish a patent pool in order to have clear and acceptable licensing terms for the underlying patents. The standardization approved in 20045 refers in particular to portable audio and video devices (PAV)

One of the members of the Digital Media Project is helping set up the patent pool: Sisvel, S.p.A., a company with an international network specialized in licensing, with offices in Europe and subsidiaries in America and Asia, will arrange for a team of independent patent experts to evaluate patents that may be essential in this field.

Any company having related patents and wishing to participate in the patent pool is requested to submit patents to Sisvel for evaluation. The objective is to create a “one-stop-shop” licensing mechanism for intellectual property rights (IPR) that will help to standardize the digital media project, providing a clear view of the exposure to royalties relating to the standard.


About the author:
SISVEL is a company active in the field of exploiting industrial and intellectual property rights. For instance Sisvel has the right to grant licenses for the use of several patent families concerning the MPEG Audio standard comprising the Mp3 standard. Contact: segretaria@sisvel.com for information.


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