Context:
- Launched last year, Access Advance’s Video Distribution Pool (VDP) licenses video codec (encoding and decoding) technologies to streaming services. It got traction among licensors quickly, several of whom are also licensees (July 1, 2025 ip fray article).
- The codecs covered by the VDP are High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC, H.265), Versatile Video Coding (VVC, H.266), VP9, and AV1.
What’s new: Access Advance just made two significant announcements in one:
- Sharp, CB Cline, SK Planet, and Telechips have joined the VDP as licensors. Sharp, with its decades of research and development in video, is particularly well-known.
- An economic study on video compression authored by J. Gregory Sidak and Dr. Andrew P. Vassallo of Criterion Economics has concluded that the VDP’s terms are FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory).
Direct impact:
- The addition of licensors, especially a famous one like Sharp, increases the attractiveness of the pool to licensees.
- The result of Criterion’S FRAND study is unsurprising as companies embroiled in litigation with patentees who do not contribute their patents to pools routinely point to pool rates as a favorable comparable. The study will now likely be pointed to when implementers dispute that the rates in question are FRAND.
New licensors
The CEO of Access Advance, Peter Moller, said the following about the addition of four new licensors:
“Sharp, CB Cline, SK Planet, and Telechips each bring meaningful contributions to the VDP Pool. Their decision to join reflects the strength of the program and is a testimony to Access Advance’s balanced approach in the licensing of video codecs in the video streaming market.
“As we continue to grow the pool’s Licensor base, we remain committed to offering video service providers a transparent, efficient, and cost-effective path to licensing the patents that support modern video distribution.”
FRAND study
The Criterion study (The Economics of Video Compression: Why the Access Advance Video Distribution Patent Pool Is Fair, Reasonable, and Nondiscriminatory) applies microeconomic theory and concludes that the VDP’s license fees are “comfortably” FRAND regardless of whether an implementer monetizes through subscriptions, advertising, or a combination of both.
The study finds that a single price for all four codecs provides transactional efficiency gains and offers licensees flexibility as the market evolves.
The executive summary of the whitepaper is available on Access Advance’s website.
Access Advance CEO Peter Moller said:
“This independent analysis provides objective, rigorous validation that the VDP Pool’s rates are not only FRAND-compliant but are in fact exceedingly modest relative to the value that modern codecs deliver.
“As our Licensors continue to invest in the next generation of video technology, this report affirms that the VDP Pool is the right vehicle for ensuring that their innovations are fairly and efficiently compensated and the adoption of these innovations continue to grow and benefit consumers worldwide.”