Context: Almost every significant maker of devices implementing audio and/or video standards has, by now, taken a standard-essential patent (SEP) pool license from Access Advance, Via Licensing Alliance (Via LA), or both.
What’s new: Within a few days of each other, we’ve learned of different optimizations that both pool administrators have made:
- Via LA’s AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) pool has offered lower rates for emerging markets for some time (AAC fee structures page), which may have played an important role in settling a dispute between Via licensors and Chinese smartphone maker (and African market leader) Transsion. Via is now expanding the concept to its HEVC/VVC (High Efficiency Video Coding/Versatile Video Coding) pool.
- Access Advance has offered regional rates for some time, but has other news:
- Its licensors have decided to enable licensees to “lock in current rates and caps through 2030” by signing up until the end of this year.
- The licensors of the respective pools have agreed to align the royalty caps for Advance’s Multi-Codec Bridging Agreement (“MCBA”) and the VVC Advance Patent Pool for Licensees who sign the MCBA during the same period.
Direct impact: These different measures make it likely that license agreements will be signed in the coming months that would otherwise take longer, or even require litigation, to fall into place.
Wider ramifications: These developments demonstrate that patent pools are a market-driven solution. They compete with the bilateral option that always exists, and patent pool administrators compete with each other for licensors. On regional rates we’ll comment in an opinion piece that will be published shortly after this article.
VVC (or H.266) is the newer and more advanced standard than HEVC (also known as H.265).
When patent pools or patent holders offer regional rates, the most common format is a reduced rate for developing economies, splitting the world into markets with higher disposible income and selling prices (United States, Europe etc.) and other countries where prices and margins are lower.
You can click here to skip the next part and go directly to the section on Via LA’s expanded regionalization (and Transsion having become a Via license).
Access Advance: rewards program for willing licensees
Access Advance made the announcement regarding the pricing decisions made by the licensors of it HEVC Advance and VVC Advance Patent Pools late on Monday (July 21, 2025). HEVC Advance counts more than 27,000 patents worldwide.
For ongoing royalty obligations as well as royalties for past use, the current royalty rates and caps will be guaranteed “through 2030” to licensees who come in before the end of this year. But that is just part of it, and one needs to factor in the MCBA. As Access Advance explains on the related webpage, the MCBA is available to licensees in both the HEVC and the VVC programs, and “not a license, [but rather] an ‘administrative’ [a]greement permitting [l]icensees in both patent pools to pay a substantially reduced royalty rate for products that include both HEVC and VVC codecs, as compared to the royalty rates set forth under the separate HEVC Advance and VVC Advance Licenses.”
Yesterday’s announcement means the following for the MCBA: those who sign up this year to both the VVC pool and the MCBA “will enjoy MCBA royalty caps that match the royalty caps for the VVC Advance program.”
The VVC rates will then stay stable during that period, too. HEVC rates, however, “will be updated [on January 1, 2026] to align HEVC Advance pricing with the existing VVC Advance royalty rate structure.” Access Advance believes that this adds an incentive to sign up to the MCBA.
In Advance’s press release, its CEO Peter Moller gives some further explanations:
“Access Advance is pleased that both groups of Licensors opted for marketplace stability and predictability with their decisions largely to maintain rates and caps at existing levels and providing an additional incentive for Licensees to sign the MCBA. After nearly a decade of stable HEVC rates, the measured adjustment for Licensees joining after 2025 reflects the tremendous growth and value that the HEVC Advance Patent Pool now delivers to the marketplace in light of the increased prevalence of HEVC devices and content.
“When we launched, we anticipated coverage of approximately 35% of all HEVC standard essential patents. Today, our pool represents an estimated 75-80% of the global HEVC patent landscape – more than doubling our initial projections. The approved rate adjustment of 25%, which will go into effect for new Licensees on January 1, 2026, while less than a full doubling that our coverage would justify, ensures fair compensation for innovators while maintaining our commitment to transparent, FRAND licensing. And, with these changes, there are clear benefits to a company joining our VVC program and securing the MCBA’s discounts even if their products do not yet include VVC functionality.”
Via LA: more regionalization for greater global appeal
We asked Via LA for information on the expansion of its regional rates approach known from the AAC program, and were provided with the following statement by its president Heath Hoglund:
“Our regional rates have been a feature of our AAC pool for years, enabling us to grow the program in China and elsewhere. We are optimistic that the separate rates we are offering by region through our HEVC/VVC program will also help us continue to grow this program in a similar fashion.”
We’d also have liked to find out more about the license agreement with Transsion, a Chinese smartphone maker that is the undisputed market leader in Africa (and significant in various other places). There was no announcement and Via did not provide a statement. The only public piece of information is that Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Co., Ltd. (full Chinese company names start with a city or region) is listed among the licensees of Via’s AAC program.
Last week, a settlement over audio codec standard-essential patents (SEPs) between Philips and Transsion became known thanks to a Delhi High Court (HC) hearing (July 16, 2025 ip fray article). A few hours later, several High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) SEP cases against Transsion surfaced (July 17, 2025 ip fray article). It appears that Transsion settled the Philips dispute through a Via AAC pool license. Whether Transsion also licensed other patents from Philips (such as cellular SEPs) is not known.
A rough estimate based on Via’s list of AAC licensees is that approximately 80% of mobile phones shipped globally are licensed. In any event, it must be a vast majority of those devices.
Apparently, the AAC license from Via LA is the first license Transsion (the market leader in Africa, but also very significant in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America), has taken in its entire company history. At least there is no other known pool license agreement involving Transsion, and Transsion was previously known to have taken only two patent licenses: there was a settlement with Qualcomm (January 16, 2025 ip fray article) and a litigation-free agreement with Nokia (January 30, 2025 ip fray article).
Given that Transsion hasn’t taken any other pool license, and generally only a few patent licenses, it’s a safe assumption that the AAC pool’s regional rate structure was a key enabler of the deal. (It also makes it likely that Transsion will sign up to Access Advance’s HEVC pool, which comes with that feature.)