Context: Patent pool operator Via Licensing Alliance announced late last year the launch of a new licensing program around dynamic random access memory (DRAM), with a focus on the rapidly growing data center industry driven by generative AI (November 18, 2025 ip fray article).
What’s new:
- Via has now formally launched the DRAM program after signing several founding licensors, and has shared pricing details (more below).
- The pool operator has also announced plans for an additional AI-focused licensing program, “Media for Cloud Processing”. This is aimed at “server-side activities pertaining to media, including the ingestion and generation of images, audio, and video, as well as server-side encoding and decoding in the context of generative AI”, the company said in a statement. The program is intended to provide a “comprehensive”, one-stop-shop license for data centers covering various standards such as Advanced Video Coding (AVC), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), and Opus.
Direct impact: While none of the identities of any of the DRAM pool’s founding licensors have yet been disclosed, it’s clear that Via is already seeing traction with the new program. The pool operator says it is engaged in active outreach to prospective licensees, and encourages other DRAM standard-essential patent (SEP) holders to consider becoming licensors.
Wider ramifications: 2026 has been a year of transformation for Via after it divested several of its licensing programs to fellow pool operator Access Advance (December 15, 2025 ip fray article). While getting the data center DRAM pool off the ground, Via revealed similar plans for a NAND memory pool (May 22, 2026 ip fray article) and also expanded its existing Voice Codec program (May 20, 2026 ip fray article). On the personnel front, former TiVo, Technicolor, and Atlassian IP executive Patrick Zhang was brought on board as Vice President, Licensing and Commercial Strategy, to lead on the development of new programs and strategic partnerships (June 15, 2026 ip fray article). The company’s annual Via Bridge Summit will be held October 6–9 in San Francisco, with John A. Squires, Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, delivering the keynote speech (July 22, 2026 ip fray article).
Via’s DRAM pool license agreement covers various standards for memory technologies developed by the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council Solid State Technology Association (JEDEC).
Taking an innovative approach to pricing that departs from a more traditional “per device” basis, fees for the DRAM pool license range from $0.005 to $0.020 per hour, per server processing unit, depending on the type of memory being used.
“For decades, SEP licensing has been conducted primarily at the device level,” said Via President Kevin Mack in a statement. He added:
“Via is a pioneer not only in licensing for the data center, one of the fastest-growing segments of the technology industry, but also in developing a forward looking licensing strategy that better pairs royalties with the value contributed by the use of the technology.”