Avanci Video is a licensing platform that brings together patents essential to multiple video standards and owned by many different patent owners into a single license that is available to video streaming companies. Avanci Video makes the licensing process simpler and more predictable for all involved.
The latest coding technologies have substantially improved compression efficiency compared to the standards of only a few years ago, enabling the emergence of a thriving and dynamic market for video streaming services. Developing and implementing these technologies is imperative to enable the resource-conscious distribution of high-resolution video in an increasingly video-centric world. Given the complexities of the patent-licensing process, it can be difficult for companies providing video streaming services to know which patents are essential and how to license them.
Avanci Video makes the process of securing a license to use these technologies easy and simplifies the adoption of the newest and most efficient video technologies. Our one-stop platform offers video streaming companies a license to the patented essential technologies needed to provide their services from multiple licensors under a single agreement without the need for time-consuming individual negotiations with patent owners.
Avanci Video differs from traditional patent pools in several important ways. Avanci Video is not owned by any patent owners or video streaming companies and truly operates as an independent intermediary between licensors and licensees, with a singular focus on simplifying licensing by developing terms that reflect a balanced, market-driven perspective. Avanci Video offers a single license covering essential video technologies for five different standards, rather than requiring streaming services to negotiate and manage separate licenses and royalty payments for each standard they implement. Designed specifically for the video streaming ecosystem, the platform gives streaming services flexibility not only in selecting which video technologies to license, but also in how royalties are calculated – whether through a per-user model, a usage-based running royalty, or a fixed-fee structure, providing predictability and choice as services scale and evolve.
New generations of video streaming technologies are driven by standardization. These standards enable the reliable distribution of high-quality streaming video, while increases in compression efficiency reduce network congestion as well as energy consumption and materials used in the world’s data centers.
Standards are developed when technology experts at various companies contribute their new inventions to a technology standard that can be implemented by the entire industry in an open manner. In order to recoup its R&D investment, the contributing company typically patents these inventions. Through a consensus-driven process among industry experts that participate in the standard setting process, the best technologies rise to the top, ultimately becoming part of a new standard.
When a new invention becomes part of a standard, a patent covering that invention is referred to as standard-essential patent. A standard-essential patent is evaluated and granted by a national patent office just like any other patent. What makes it a standard-essential patent is that the invention covered by the patent must be used to implement the standard.
Avanci Video offers a license to essential patents owned by participating patent owners relating to five technology standards used for video streaming: AV1, H.265 (HEVC), H.266 (VVC), MPEG-DASH, and VP9. Each licensee can tailor its license by selecting one or more of these standards to include in its license, based on its needs. Our license covers all the essential patents for the selected standards owned by the patent owners that have joined our platform, whenever they join, including any such patents they develop or acquire during the term of the license.
The platform currently licenses the essential patents of the licensors listed above and we expect to add more patent owners in future.
No, Avanci does not publish a list of licensed patents. We take a definitional approach to SEP licensing. The licensed patents include all essential AV1, H.265 (HEVC), H.266 (VVC), MPEG-DASH, and VP9 patent claims owned or licensable by the licensors at any time during the applicable term.
Avanci uses this broad approach to defining the patented technology covered by the license for several reasons:
- There are tens of thousands of video SEPs, and the patenting process and standards are very dynamic. Because new SEPs are regularly granted to Avanci licensors, because the standards develop and change, and because new SEP owners regularly join Avanci as licensors, keeping an up-to-date, comprehensive, and accurate list of all licensed patents would not be practical or efficient.
- The definitional approach allows the Avanci license to be as comprehensive as possible. It covers all standard essential patent claims whether they are listed or not. And the license is also “sticky,” meaning that any licensed patent included in the license remains licensed to a licensee during the license term, even if it is sold, assigned, or otherwise transferred to a third party.
- New essential patents acquired by or issued to a licensor during the term of the agreement are automatically covered by the license at no additional cost.
In our experience, licensees often obtain information about an individual licensor’s essential patents directly from the licensor. Additionally, upon request by the licensee, Avanci will use commercially reasonable efforts to inform the licensee whether a specific patent claim is a licensed patent.
Yes. To be eligible to join Avanci programs as a licensor, a patent holder must submit a patent claim chart to Avanci. The patent holder is qualified to join if at least one patent claim is found to be essential. After an SEP holder becomes a licensor, it may submit additional claim charts to Avanci for evaluation as part of the royalty allocation system.
We work with a worldwide network of independent patent evaluators who evaluate the submitted claim charts for essentiality to a relevant standard. In this way, we ensure that each Avanci licensor owns at least one relevant SEP. We closely monitor and administer this process to ensure consistency and objectivity across evaluators and jurisdictions.
Over time, our worldwide network of independent patent evaluators have evaluated thousands of claim charts for essentiality checking as part of our royalty allocation methodology. Given that there are potentially tens of thousands of SEPs, it would be impractical and inefficient to evaluate a claim chart for every essential patent claim included in an Avanci license.
The independent patent evaluators are both experts with respect to the related technologies and patent attorneys qualified in the jurisdiction relevant for the patent claim chart being analyzed. Avanci does not disclose the identity of patent evaluators to licensors and ensures no conflicts of interest exist. Not all patent claims submitted to Avanci are found to be essential.
Companies that provide video streaming services have the option to take a license from Avanci Video. Our licensing program is open to all video streaming companies including subscription-based services, ad-based services, social media and video messaging platforms, and video conferencing providers. If you have an existing video streaming service or are in the process of bringing a new service to market, you should contact us to learn more about the Avanci Video license.
Avanci Video is licensing the essential technology that is necessary when utilizing AV1, H.265 (HEVC), H.266 (VVC), MPEG-DASH, and VP9 to provide a video streaming service to the market. A license from Avanci Video covers the entire essential patent portfolio for these video streaming technologies of patent owners already on the platform, plus the patents of new licensors that join Avanci Video in the future. As a result, an Avanci Video licensee does not need to negotiate individual license agreements with the participating licensors for the same patents.
When considering the price of an Avanci Video license, it is important to consider how our license option differs from a bilateral license between a single SEP owner and one licensee.
- Bilateral license: A single patent holder and single video streaming company agree on a set of license terms and conditions for a license under the patent holder’s patents for the streaming company’s video streaming services. The terms and conditions of the license are often reached after the patent holder and streaming company have exchanged technical and business information, such as patent lists, claim charts, and past and projected revenues.
- Avanci Video license: A video streaming company agrees to a joint license under the majority of SEPs worldwide covering the global services of the video streaming company and its affiliates. The price of an Avanci Video license does not vary by geography, size, or profitability of the licensee. We offer the same pricing to any video streaming company regardless of where they are headquartered and without regard to the number of services or profit margin. This transparent universal pricing is a key feature of Avanci Video that creates a level playing field for all licensees.
To arrive at the terms and conditions of the Avanci license, including the price, Avanci has engaged individually with potential licensors and potential licensees. We have sought input on the value that the licensed essential technology will confer on a video streaming service and – importantly – on the terms and conditions (including but not limited to the price) that are likely to attract a critical mass of licensors while still being widely acceptable for licensees. Avanci does not seek or collect information about royalty rates offered by the licensors in their bilateral licensing discussions with licensees. The price of an Avanci license is not calculated based on an estimated total “stack” or “aggregate” royalty that a licensee would pay if it licensed each licensor’s licensed patents through separate bilateral agreements.
Yes. We work with licensors and licensees to determine the existence of any separate license between a licensor and a licensee that overlaps with the Avanci Video license. When we are instructed to do so, we credit the licensee for the portion of the royalties that would otherwise be paid to the licensor if there were no separate overlapping agreement. Alternately, the licensor and licensee may agree to another means to resolve the overlapping license.
Avanci Video provides a worldwide license to make use of the covered video streaming technologies.
Yes. Your license from Avanci Video will automatically include patent owners’ then-existing patents essential to AV1, H.265 (HEVC), H.266 (VVC), MPEG-DASH, and VP9, as well as any such patents they develop or acquire during the term of your license, and the essential patents of any new patent owners who join during the license term.
We welcome you to join us-and many other industry-leading innovators-to make your patented video technology available to video streaming companies. Avanci Video connects patent owners and video streaming companies in one platform, without the need for complex negotiations-speeding up the process of securing technology rights for new products while ensuring patent owners receive a fair return on their R&D investment.
Please contact us to learn more about licensing your AV1, H.265 (HEVC), H.266 (VVC), MPEG-DASH, and VP9 standard-essential patents through the platform.