The DVB Project was badly bitten by the MHP licensing program, and from the outside it was difficult to guess exactly what went wrong, although the fact that it was coordinated with Cable TV technology and its OCAP specification, reliant on big US cable operators and their suppliers, led many to guess that it was that quarter which caused the problems.
MHP was a set of open middleware standards for interactive TV, which is a Java-based set of applications with interaction delivered over the broadcast channel, together with audio and video streams. The OCAP system for US cable was similar and based on MHP, but curiously it cost less to license than MHP.
The problems, DVB now reveals, were all about the patent pooling process, which was shrouded in secrecy. It’s a bit hard to issue a standard based on secrets, and it’s a bit hard to claim that your patents are essential if you won’t tell anyone on the committee what exactly is in them. Reading between the lines of the new DVB Project patent pooling guidelines, that’s what slowed down the middleware process for MHP and resulted in a dead standard with about 2 operators thinking of implementing it based on the hugely expensive license.
In July 2005 Dolby’s Via Licensing set MHP licenses after a year’s deliberations at $2 per device, while the OCAP license cost just $1.50, despite all contributions from Sun, apart from Java, being offered license free.
An additional charge for MHP of $0.25 per annum per household and $0.30 per household for OCAP was also proposed.
The DVB Project was quick to respond, and denounced the license fee, and then last year began a second review of patents, determined to change the standard to strip out ‘expensive,’ patents and use something else. That project is still not over, but it has led to a revamp of all future DVB rules, announced this week.
Patent pools will now begin at the ‘Call for Technology’ stage, when contributors will be asked to confirm their willingness to enter into a patent pool at all. Failure to do so will mean the technology will simply not be chosen.
Work on the patent pool will start with a ‘light touch’ test to see that the patents are essential, and will go on while the standard is still being developed. In the end patent holders will have to submit to a peer review over the essential nature of proffered patents, by DVB specialists ‘ so hiding their nature and detail is out of the question.
Carter Eltzroth, Legal Director DVB, stated, ‘It was our frustration with the MHP process and its results that sparked DVB’s policy review. The MHP pool took too long to complete and its results are surrounded by multiple layers of confidentiality. Implementers can’t easily assess the quality of the patents included in the pool. Our pilot peer review program raised a number of technical points on the MHP patents, but the confidentiality rules within the MHP licensing programme have blocked any meaningful discussion with the patent holders or the pool administrator.’
DVB says that the new measures are already showing results, with the completion in a matter of months of the new licensing program for CSA3 Common Scrambling Algorithm technology and the reinvigorated effort for DVB-H.
The DVB Project is an industry-led consortium of over 250 broadcasters, manufacturers, network operators, software developers, regulatory bodies and others working in over 35 countries.