[Patents] patents and DRM

[Kristoff Bonne kristoff.bonne@compaqnet.be]

Greetings,

For people interested in the economical effect of patents, this may be
interesting.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across the site of 'Digital Radio Mondial'
(http://www.drm.org/); a new proposal of the EBU (European Broadcasting
Union, http://www.ebu.ch/) for digital radio in frequencies below the 30
Mhz.
To be complete, there also is an american proposal based on IBOC, but they
do not seam to have a 'central' website. 

(This means medium wave and short wave, mainly used for long-distance
communication).

By itself, no problem. But, it turns out that that both specifications
use AAC and SBR as (the only available) audio-codec.
AFAIK, AAC is derived from dolby (and patented). Concerning SBR, I do not
know the status if it patented and by who.

Anycase, considering the fact that MW and SW are used quite a lot in the
'developing countries', it would be interesting to see how much the cost
of the patents on those audio-codecs would add to the total cost of a
receiver; and -to what degree- this extra cost would interfere with the
introduction of digital services in 'the thirth world'.

Also consider the fact that there exist patent-free audio-codecs (vorbis
ogg).


Cheerio! Kr. Bonne.