SAN FRANCISCO�Via Licensing Corporation has announced that it is developing a patent pool for the Extended High Efficiency AAC (xHE-AAC). A recent update to the Advanced Audio Coding range of technologies from standardized by ISO MPEG, xHE-AAC combines a speech coder with a general audio coder for a single audio coding system that can achieve low bitrates with either speech, music or ambient sounds. Digital Radio Mondiale has selected xHE-AAC for its audio coding format.
xHE-AAC patent owners�which include Dolby Laboratories, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Fraunhofer IIS, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Orange S.A., Sony, and VoiceAge Corporation�have worked with Via Licensing to establish this patent pool. As a result, third parties will be able to license the xHE-AAC technology for a fee.
According to Via Licensing, royalties for the xHE-AAC are expected to be:
�
- 1-500,000 units – $1.08/unit
- 500,001-1,000,000 – $0.88/unit
- 1,000,001-2,000,000 – $0.78/unit
- 2,000,001-5,000,000 – $0.70/unit
- 5,000,001-10,000,000 – $0.67/unit
- 10,000,001-20,000,000 – $0.47/unit
- 20,000,001-50,000,000 – $0.45/unit
- 50,000,001-75,000,000 – $0.40/unit
- 75,000,000+ – $0.35/unit
�
AAC pool licensees will be able to add a license grant for xHE-AAC to an existing AAC license agreement. The license fees are inclusive of underlying AAC patents.
Via Licensing plans to launch the patent pool during the second quarter of 2016.
