MPEG LA Extends Call for Initial Submission of Essential H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Patents; Initial Submissions Requested By January 31, 2003.

Business Editors, Technology Writers

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 29, 2002

MPEG LA, LLC today announced that it has extended until January 31, 2003, the initial period during which patent holders who believe they own patents that are essential to the proposed JVT/AVC Standard may submit them for an evaluation of essentiality by independent patent experts for the purpose of forming a joint AVC Patent Portfolio License. MPEG LA first announced an initial call for patent submissions in a news release dated 11 September 2002 (see http://www.mpegla.com/news/n_02-09-11_jvt.html).

The initial patent submission period has been extended in order to provide more opportunity for parties to prepare their patent submissions and in expectation that the AVC Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) will be achieved in December 2002. Although the 11 September 2002 news release referred to the proposed JVT/AVC Standard as embodied in the Final Committee Draft, patents will be examined for their essentiality to the FDIS, and more information will be provided on that at the appropriate time.

For each patent submitted, an evaluation fee of US $8,500.00 will be paid to MPEG LA, LLC. Submitting parties must confirm their agreement with the terms and procedures governing the patent submission process which may be obtained from Jane Tannenbaum, Director, Contract Administration ([e-mail]). Although patent submissions may continue to be submitted after January 31, 2003, owners of essential patents in the initial group of patents submitted by the January 31 date will be convened to form the initial group of Licensors that will select a Licensing Administrator and determine the terms of license.

MPEG LA, LLC

MPEG LA successfully pioneered one-stop technology standards licensing with a portfolio of essential patents for the international digital video compression standard known as MPEG-2, which it began licensing in 1997. One-stop technology standards licensing enables widespread technological implementation, interoperability and use of fundamental broad-based technologies covered by many patents owned by many patent holders. MPEG LA provides users with fair, reasonable, nondiscriminatory access to these essential patents on a worldwide basis under a single license. In addition to MPEG-2, MPEG LA licenses portfolios of essential patents for the IEEE 1394 Standard and DVB-T Standard and will license portfolios of essential patents for the MPEG-4 Visual and Systems standards. For more information, please refer to http://www.mpegla.com, http://www.1394la.com and http://www.dvbla.com. MPEG LA is based in Denver, Colorado, USA.