DVB-T2: SISVEL Announces Development of a Joint Patent Licensing Program and Issues a Call for Essential Patents.

TURIN, Italy -- SISVEL announced today that it is acting as the facilitator for the creation of a DVB-T2 joint patent licensing program and is issuing a call for patents and patent applications that are essential to the DVB-T2 Standard.

SISVEL is directing efforts to create a joint licensing program to make DVB-T2 technology accessible to all users on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms and conditions. SISVEL invites all parties holding a patent or a patent application that they believe to be essential to the DVB-T2 standard to submit it for an evaluation of essentiality by Sisvel's designated independent patent evaluator. Detailed information on patent submission procedures can be obtained from SISVEL by sending an email to the following address: [e-mail].

All parties with patents or patent applications judged to be essential by the independent evaluator will be invited to join the process to create a joint licensing program, which is scheduled to start with a meeting in Rome at the end of May 2009. To complete patent evaluations in time for this meeting, applications are requested to be filed as soon as possible and no later than April 7, 2009.

In issuing the call for patents, Gian Antonio Pancot, Chief Executive Officer of SISVEL, noted: "Sisvel is proud to have been selected to help patent holders create a DVB-T2 joint patent licensing program," adding "This innovative technology has tremendous potential and we will work with the patent holders to establish licensing terms and conditions as soon as possible to provide certainty and predictability to all users and potential users, as well as the applicable regulatory bodies."

About DVB-T2

DVB-T2 is the most advanced standard for broadcasting digital TV on terrestrial networks offering an increase in transmission capacity efficiency of 30-50% compared to DVB-T. The DVB-T2 Standard was published in the form of a Blue Book by the DVB on June 2008 (see www.dvb.org) and has been filed with ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute, see www.etsi.org) to be converted into a formal standard.

About SISVEL, S.p.A.

Established in 1982, SISVEL has become one of the world's leaders in managing intellectual property and maximizing the value of patent rights. The Sisvel Group is global in scope and reach, with companies in Italy (Sisvel in None Torinese and Edico in Rome), the United States (Audio MPEG in Metropolitan Washington, DC), China (Sisvel Hong Kong), Japan (Sisvel Japan in Tokyo), and Germany (Sisvel Germany in Stuttgart), and with more than seventy professionals worldwide with technical, legal, and licensing expertise. SISVEL has a long history of managing successful patent portfolios including those related to the audio compression standards known as MP3 and MPEG Audio, and widespread technologies such as OSD (On Screen Display), ATSS (Automatic Tuning & Sorting System), and WSS (Wide Screen Signaling - for automatic switching of television image formats). Most recently SISVEL has been appointed as the administrator of the DVB-T patent pool related to the widely adopted terrestrial digital television broadcast standard.