It has been a transformative 12 months for Via Licensing Alliance.
Last November, the pool operator issued a call for patents relevant to Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), with a view to establishing a first-of-its-kind program aimed at the burgeoning data center industry (November 18, 2025 ip fray article).
A month later, Via announced the acquisition of its longstanding pools covering the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and Versatile Video Coding (VVC) video codec standards by fellow pool operator Access Advance (December 15, 2025 ip fray article).
And not long after that, Kevin Mack took the reins as Via’s new President (April 1, 2026 ip fray article).
Since stepping in to the top job at the start of the year, Mr. Mack has led a transition in which the aforementioned DRAM pool—as well as a complementary NAND flash memory-focused program (May 22, 2026 ip fray article)—have become central to Via’s future growth plans.
As the memory semiconductor technologies essential to the AI revolution, DRAM and NAND might seem totally different territory to the audio, video, and wireless communications standards that have historically been patent pools’ bread and butter.
Speaking recently to ip fray, Mr. Mack acknowledged these differences, while also underlining what he sees as key similarities – and the market’s growing need for a specialized solution.
“The licensing ecosystem is relatively immature. In semiconductors, there has been bilateral licensing, rather than collaborative solutions”, he said.
And while technical standards in the memory space may be less familiar than the likes of 5G or MPEG, they are nevertheless strong and widely implemented.
“All need to be JEDEC [Joint Electron Device Engineering Council Solid State Technology Association] compliant. The standards here are more akin to codecs than we might think: they are normative and well-defined and low-level, with lots of IP covering the specific detail.”
Data centers’ four-layer IP stack
DRAM and NAND represent two layers of a four-layer IP stack, Mr. Mack said; alongside the networking and software layers, which he also sees as opportunities for Via.
With regards to the latter, Via recently announced the launch of its Media for Cloud Processing program, which aims to provide a tailored pool license covering audio and video codecs for data centers (September 10, 2026 ip fray article).
“The reason we looked at all these layers is that we believe our collaborative licensing structures could be really beneficial across AI infrastructure,” said Mr. Mack.
“The space is highly fragmented, making it a recipe for success for a collaborative licensing program. When you move up to storage and NAND, it’s a similar story”, he added.
With dozens of companies that own more than five patent families relevant to these layers, “there’s a lot of risk out there”, he said.
For hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Alibaba Cloud, “it will make more sense… to come here, take a license, and operate relatively unimpeded by the threat of lawsuits.”
Fresh talent, established expertise
In line with the increased emphasis on its new AI-centric programs, Via has dipped into the talent pool to bring several new senior team members on board in recent months.
Other than Mr. Mack himself, recent hires at Via include Patrick Zhang to lead on licensing and commercial strategy (June 15, 2026 ip fray article) and Tony Piotrowski as General Counsel (September 15, 2026 ip fray article)
However, Via’s core offering remains the same.
“Getting a bunch of companies into a room together, where some are operating companies and some are [non-practicing entities], is very challenging”, Mr. Mack said. “But people really trust Via.”
Two new pools planned
The strategic shift towards AI and data centers “is really the next chapter of Via’s growth”, Mr. Mack said; though it does not necessarily portend a winding-down of Via’s legacy programs.
“Many of our programmes are reaching a mature stage”, he said. However, Via’s Voice Codec and Qi Wireless pools have licensed just 50% of their respective potential markets, indicating plenty of future growth potential.
The firm also plans to launch two new collaborative licensing programmes next year, according to Mr. Mack.
Via’s existing, non-AI-centric programs will “help fuel the next chapter of growth”, he continued. “On top of that, all the newer programs should help underpin growth over the next five to 10 years and beyond.”