San Francisco, April 18, 2016—Via Licensing Corporation announced today
that a patent pool license for Extended High Efficiency AAC (xHE-AAC) is in the
final stage of development.
xHE-AAC
is the most recent update to the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) family of
technologies standardized by ISO MPEG. xHE-AAC combines an optimized speech
coder with a high-performance general audio coder resulting in a single audio coding
system capable of achieving exceptional results at low bit rates with any type
of audio content, whether speech, music, or ambient sounds.
xHE-AAC
is ideally suited for radio broadcast, which combines a variety of content from
talk radio to voice over music or sound-effects to purely musical program
content. For this reason, xHE-AAC has been selected as the audio coding format
for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), a digital radio system designed to work over
existing analog radio broadcast infrastructure, including shortwave. Apart from
radio broadcast, xHE-AAC is well suited for radio streaming services, especially
over congested networks. Due to its coding efficiency and scalability, with stereo
bit rates as low as 12 kilobits per second xHE-AAC enables streaming services
over 2G networks such as those found in emerging markets, and it can save
bandwidth costs for service providers and consumers even on 3G and 4G LTE
networks.
A
number of xHE-AAC essential patent owners have been working to establish the
patent pool with Via Licensing, including Dolby Laboratories, Electronics and Telecommunications Research
Institute (ETRI), Fraunhofer IIS, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Orange S.A., Sony
Corporation, and VoiceAge Corporation.
Royalties
for the xHE-AAC license are expected to be as follows:
Volume
(per unit/annual
reset) | Per-Unit Fee* |
For the first 1 to 500,000 units | $1.08 |
For 500,001 to 1,000,000 units | $0.88 |
For 1,000,001 to 2,000,000 units | $0.78 |
For 2,000,001 to 5,000,000 units | $0.70 |
For 5,000,001 to 10,000,000 units | $0.67 |
For 10,000,001 to 20,000,000 units | $0.47 |
For 20,000,001 to 50,000,000 units | $0.45 |
For 50,000,001 to 75,000,000 units | $0.40 |
For 75,000,001 and more units | $0.35 |
*
Preliminary; subject to change, pending availability of the license |
The
xHE-AAC program is designed to make it easy for current and future AAC pool
licensees to add a license grant for xHE-AAC to an existing AAC license
agreement. Similarly, reporting a mix of both AAC and xHE-AAC products is
streamlined for AAC licensees. The license fees presented above are inclusive
of the underlying AAC patents. In other words, xHE-AAC licensees will not be
paying twice for the patents that are granted under the AAC Patent License
Agreement.
“We
are very pleased that the xHE-AAC patent pool is nearing launch,” said Joseph
Siino, President of Via. “Via and its licensors have supported the Digital
Radio Mondiale initiative for many years. As the format evolves, just as the
AAC codec family itself evolves, it is important for us to aid commercialization
of the technology by simplifying access to the essential patent rights for
manufacturers and developers worldwide.”
The
xHE-AAC patent pool is expected to launch in the second quarter of 2016.
About Via Licensing Corporation
Via
Licensing Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc.,
a company with more than 50 years of experience in innovation and technology
licensing. Via is dedicated to the development and administration of licensing
programs for mandated, de facto, and emerging standards on behalf of innovative
technology companies in the audio, broadcast, wireless, and automotive markets.
For more information about Via, please visit vialicensing.com.
Media Contact
Sean
Durkin
Sean.d@vialicensing
415-645-5176