Tokyo, October 20, 1997 ---- Six of the leading developers of DVD technology, Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Time Warner Inc., Toshiba Corporation, and Victor Company of Japan, Ltd., announced today that they have come to an agreement on a joint patent licensing program for DVD.
The companies authorized Toshiba to execute the licensing program, in cooperation with Matsushita and Hitachi who will assist its licensing activities on a regional basis, for a package of the essential patents of the six companies in order to facilitate the worldwide introduction of DVD on an expeditious basis. Licenses for a package of these patents will be available for those products which are compliant with DVD formats made by the DVD Forum. These arrangements cover essential patents for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM. Licenses will be available with royalties of 4% for DVD-Video player, DVD-ROM drive and DVD decoder with a minimum royalty of $4, and 7.5 cent per DVD disc.
The DVD-Video and DVD-ROM patents owned by each of the six companies are also available to interested third parties for license pursuant to separate negotiations with each company on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions.
The six companies continue to welcome other firms with essential patents for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM to join the common licensing program in order to give licensees the maximum benefits, convenience and efficiencies of one-stop shopping. Certain other key players with DVD patents have already expressed an interest in participating in the joint licensing program. The six companies are still under negotiation with Philips and Sony for a possible single DVD patent pool with them.
For further information, please contact:
Toshiba Corporation| DVD Business Promotion and Support DVD Products Division |
TEL: 81-3-3457-2473 |
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| FAX: 81-3-5444-9430 |