MPEG LA Facilitating Development of Enhanced Voice Services Patent Pool License

EVS offers high definition voice, audio, and music services at reduced bandwidth

DENVER, CO, US – January 20, 2016 – MPEG LA announced today that in response to market demand, a number of companies responsible for developing the Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) codec for the 3GPP’s 4G LTE standard have been meeting, with MPEG LA’s assistance, to decide the terms of a worldwide license offering one-stop access to coverage under their essential EVS patents as a convenient alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent owners.

Designed to operate ubiquitously over 3G and 4G mobile and fixed-line communications networks, EVS enables vastly improved high definition voice quality at reduced bandwidth, increased network capacity and advanced features for music, audio and voice services.

The participating companies have made progress toward reaching agreement on terms of a joint patent license giving implementers the opportunity to reduce uncertainty in planning for the deployment of EVS. They expect to be able to offer a joint patent license to the market covering various EVS product applications, such as EVS on mobile devices for general voice communication over LTE (VoLTE) and 3rd generation circuit switched mobile networks, including Mission Critical Push to Talk (MCPTT) and others.

The group plans to provide more information about the license. Among terms under discussion are those that would make the technology accessible to early stage adopters and both high and low volume users.

Participants in the group include many of the world’s communications technology leaders in voice and audio compression.

For more information, please email info@mpegla.com.

MPEG LA, LLC

MPEG LA is the world leader in alternative technology licenses. By assisting users with implementation of their technology choices, MPEG LA offers licensing solutions that create opportunities for wide adoption and fuel innovation. MPEG LA’s pioneering MPEG-2 licensing program helped produce the most widely employed standard in consumer electronics history and has become the template for addressing numerous other technologies. Today MPEG LA manages licensing programs consisting of more than 11,000 patents in 80 countries with some 200 licensors and 6,000 licensees. For more information, please refer to http://www.mpegla.com.