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“Given that IEC [International Electrotechnical Commission] has already started accepting submissions for patents in the replacement H.265 standard, and the rise of unencumbered formats like WebM, it is not clear if H.264 will still be relevant in 2014.” Google did not respond to a request for comment. MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn wasn’t immediately available for comment. Asked about MPEG LA’s rationale for the change in license pricing, a spokeperson for the group said in an e-mail, “This is a decision of the patent holders based on their general sense that this clarification is beneficial to the market in responding to its demand for AVC deployment.” Several months ago, Horn claimed that some of his group’s patent holders held patents that covered Ogg Theora, an open source codec favored by Mozilla. Apple CEO Steve Jobs appears to have gone further in an e-mail by claiming, “A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other ‘open source’ codecs now.

” To date, no such lawsuit has surfaced. But given the legal wrangling between Apple, Google, Oracle, Nokia, and just about everyone else in the mobile arena, it would hardly be surprising to see further litigation. Update: Updated story to clarify that licensees serving paid video are unaffected by this change. At the 2010 InformationWeek 500 Conference, C-level executives from leading global companies will gather to discuss how they’re meeting the growth imperative. it happens Sept. 12-15, St. Regis Monarch Beach, Calif. Find out more. Video Patent Holders Forswear Fees

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