It looks like video patent licensing agency MPEG LA is targeting the highly promising genome editing techniques of using CRISPR-Cas9. They are proposing to bundle all the relevant patents so that interested parties can rest assured they have all the necessary patents while developing their products. CRISPR-Cas9 is a set of enzymes and RNA guides that enable precise targeting of genomic regions which is quite handy in research and medicine. Note that there already is a litigation in this matter between Broad-Harvard and Berkeley.
From the press release:
"CRISPR's wide range of potential applications in medicine and agriculture, and the steadily increasing volume of intellectual property in the field, point to the need for a one-stop licensing platform to reduce litigation risk and provide efficiency, transparency and predictability to scientists and businesses worldwide," said MPEG LA President and CEO Larry Horn. "Our worldwide licensing infrastructure, trusted reputation for independence, experience, impartiality and results with patent pools, and relationships with industry and academia, including life sciences, position MPEG LA to deliver a licensing solution for the life sciences market as it did with digital video for the consumer electronics market."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @04:32AM
Here's what's wrong with it: you've got to be big to play in this game. It's like walking into a poker room and your only choice is no limit Texas Hold 'em, $50,000 buy in.
https://www.vcodex.com/video-compression-patents/ [vcodex.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday December 08 2016, @04:48AM
Smaller players can freely license MPEG video patents. For example, if you sell less than 100,000 HEVC products per year, you pay nothing [mpegla.com].
Smaller players in the CRISPR scenario don't care about licensing, but benefit from having more information available and more science out in the open. You don't need to license a patent to conduct amateur science or get a research grant. Licensing comes into play only after you want to sell a drug or whatever. That's when the big players come in, and assume the liabilities of selling a CRISPR produced drug or lifeform.
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @05:21AM
My bet is they are realizing they will quickly be irrelevant. As their key patents are expiring. So they need a fresh group to mine.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 08 2016, @05:26AM
That doesn't matter. How about leaving the MPEG name out of it and evaluating the idea to start a bundle/pool of CRISPR patents?
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @07:32AM
> Smaller players can freely license MPEG video patents. For example, if you sell less than 100,000 HEVC products per year, you pay nothing.
That's only hevc, mpeg2 was not like that.
They did it because they are afraid of competition from the likes of vp9.
Don't count on them being so generous if they corner the market on crispr patents.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 08 2016, @05:06PM
As I've already explained, many people can use CRISPR without licensing any of the patents.
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