Despite a stalemate in the DVD consortium, Philips Electronics NV and Sony Corp announced that they will begin licensing digital video disk technology (CI No 2,970). They say they want to enable the computer and consumer electronics industries to prepare for the market introduction of the new disk format. The move is in response to a continuing inability of the 10-company DVD consortium to agree on a pooled technology licensing arrangement. Philips’ vice-president of key modules, Jan Oosterveld, said his company hopes to kick-start the process. It appears that one of the major sticking points of the consortium was of how to process copy protection. But Oosterveld said this was an independent matter from the technology involved and should be hammered out by the entertainment industry. Sony has authorized Philips to execute the licensing program covering DVD Video and DVD-ROM players and disks. Licenses will be available on reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions to all interested parties, Philips said, adding that a royalty on the player and disk would be charged by itself and Sony for those patents that are considered to be essential. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd will get the lion’s share of the patent fees as it is contributing 25% of the patents, and Pioneer Electronic Corp and Sony come next with 20% each. There are so many differences in the consortium, we felt we couldn’t wait any longer, Oosterveld told reporters. We want to make the technology available to the community so that product development can commence. Licensing fees will be around 2.5% of the OEM price on DVD players, and 4.5 cents on each disk. The technology patents cover a wide range of hardware and software, including disk structure, data modulation and error correction.
