As we have seen in this chapter, a huge number of clever technologies have been applied to the art and science of video compression. Even though much of this technology is governed by international standards, not all of this technology is in the public domain. In fact, many of the key technologies used in MPEG and other compression systems were developed by individuals and corporations who still retain ownership of their technology in the form of patents and other legally protected rights. For example, the patent portfolio for MPEG-2 technologies includes 630 patents from around the world.

Fortunately, the owners of these technologies banded together to set up an organization known as the MPEG LA (the LA originally stood for Licensing Administrator, but now LA is the official name). MPEG LA is responsible for establishing and collecting the license fees on the technology and for distributing the collected funds to the patent owners. This central clearinghouse provides big benefits to the users of this technology, because one simple payment to MPEG LA satisfies the patent obligations for the covered technology. Contrast this with the headaches and complexities that would be involved in negotiating separate license agreements with the 20+ companies that have patents included in the MPEG-2 technology pool.

The license fees are assessed on a per-item basis and are officially described on www.mpegla.com. For example, the fee listed on the website for an MPEG-2 decoding device (such as a DVD player, a set top box, or...