Toshiba led the battle against the Sony-backed Blu-ray technology until it was evident to all that Blu-ray had won the war. It has now become an ardent booster of Blu-ray. One reason is the patents it owns that are needed by makers of Blu-ray gear. It has partnered with Mitsubishi, Technicolor (n’e Thomson) and Warner Bros to form BD4C Licensing Group, which licenses the companies’ Blu-ray technology. It said it would only grant licenses to companies for products that comply with the Blu-ray Disc specifications as maintained by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). This is only a patent pool for the patents which these four companies group hold, so we’d expect you’d have to get another license from Sony, which pioneered Blu-ray.
BD4C’s licenses cover components that encode and decode the data on Blu-ray discs – and the discs themselves. The group’s technology licenses include Blu-ray gear that incorporates DVD functionality such as hybrid BD/DVD media.
BD4C is asking other holders of Blu-ray patents to join the group, so maybe Sony will join in. The BD4C Licensing Group said it “reserves the right to adjust the rates as necessary to encourage the broad participation in the program by interested companies with essential patents.”
(See PDF version for table with prices)