Context: Vestel, a Turkish consumer electronics (particularly TV) manufacturer, is a large-scale implementer of standard-essential patents (SEPs), especially in the video codec (encoding and decoding) space. It has repeatedly found itself on the receiving end of SEP assertions, such as by licensors of the Access Advance and Via pools. The dispute with Via ended in 2016, and the one with Advance last year (March 7, 2024 press release by Access Advance).
What’s new: This morning, Vestel IP manager Kemal Rıfat Aygör announced on LinkedIn that “Vestel has joined Avanci Video as a licensor with its video codec patents” and that the company “is proud to contribute to the Avanci Video platform, which simplifies licensing for streaming video providers.” On the official Avanci Video webpage, Vestel’s logo now appears among the licensors. No licensees are listed so far as the licensing market for video streamers is in its infancy.
Direct impact: When implementers who have previously challenged pool rates in court make their own patents available to pools, it is typically a good sign for the rates being reasonable. A company like Vestel makes far more money selling devices than licensing patents, so it has no strategic interest in inflated SEP royalties.
Wider ramifications: Policy makers should take this development as a sign that even if some implementers complain about SEP royalty rates, it happens all the time that major implementers make their own patents available for licensing through established patent pools.
Vestel’s decision to join the Avanci Video pool should also be understood by streaming companies as another indication of innovators wanting to get paid. For a long time, streamers have been free-riding, with hardware and software makers footing the bill. That is changing now. Enforcement actions are pending in various jurisdictions. Last month, Nokia won its first-ever patent injunction (not a SEP in that case) against a major streaming platform (Amazon Prime Video) (February 7, 2025 ip fray article).
It is too early to tell where the licensing market for video streaming is going. Ultimately the key question is going to be who signs up the most important streamers as licensees.
While Vestel had its disagreements with other video codec pools in the past, there was never any friction with Avanci, primarily attributable to the technology focus of Avanci’s pools.
In the LinkedIn post mentioned above, Vestel describes itself as Türkiye’s “leading technology company and a standard essential patent (SEP) licensor.” It could be that video streamers are not the only category of implementers of video codecs that will now be asked to pay for the use of Vestel’s patents. For a company that used to defend itself vigorously against royalty demands by other patent holders, that is an interesting evolution.