{"id":557,"date":"2024-06-06T14:05:12","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T14:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/?p=557"},"modified":"2024-06-06T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T14:05:12","slug":"dolby-continues-to-acquire-patent-licensing-businesses-buys-ge-licensing-previously-dolbys-via-acquired-mpeg-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/dolby-continues-to-acquire-patent-licensing-businesses-buys-ge-licensing-previously-dolbys-via-acquired-mpeg-la\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolby continues to acquire patent licensing businesses, buys GE Licensing; previously, Dolby’s Via acquired MPEG LA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Context:<\/strong> The most significant M&A transaction in the patent licensing business to date was last year’s $160 million acquisition of patent pool administrator MPEG LA by Dolby’s Via Licensing, forming Via LA (May 2, 2023 press release<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s new:<\/strong> Today, Dolby announced an agreement to acquire GE Licensing (June 6, 2024 press release by Dolby<\/a>). “The transaction will include a portfolio of over 5,000 patents, including […] in standard essential video compression. GE Aerospace will retain its portfolio of IP related to its core aerospace and defense technologies, as well as the trademark portfolio for the GE brand.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Direct impact:<\/strong> The deal “is expected to close by the end of fiscal year 2024, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.” Given that standard-essential patents (SEPs) cannot compete with each other (double patenting is not allowed and implementers need a license to all patents reading on a standard), the SEP-related part of the deal does not put implementers in a worse place, though there could be room for a vertical foreclosure theory concerning the patent pool business. As far as non-SEPs are concerned, there would be an issue only if otherwise competing technologies were consolidated under the same ownership, which is unlikely here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wider ramifications:<\/strong> At this point there is no reason to believe that Dolby’s deals reflect a general trend toward consolidation in the patent licensing business.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dolby and GE are long-standing partners in the patent licensing space. In particular, both are among the owners and licensors of the Access Advance pool administration firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears that GE was looking for a strategic exit from a patent licensing business in fields of technology that are no longer key to the company’s product divisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dolby is a leader in consolidation in the patent licensing business. Today Dolby announced the acquisition of GE Licensing. Last year, Dolby-owned Via Licensing acquired patent pool manager MPEG LA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dolby","category-l-icensors-licensees"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipfray.com\/staging1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}