History (1997): DVD Royalties

The problem of royalties is discreetly mentioned by optical manufacturers.

Yet, Sony and Philips have made a killing on audio CD and CD-ROM.

According to the magazine One to One (March 1997), Philips has claim to 3 cents per CD, although the publication acknowledges that the largest share of CD duplicators have never paid a dime.

Still concerning CDs, Thomson views its own patents as undeniable, and is asking for 3 cents per disk, on top of what is already going to Philips and Sony, according to Philip V. W Dodds, president of the former IMA (Interactive Multimedia Association), in an article published earlier this year, entitled DVD Royalty: The Reign of Patents.

According to the same source, royalties on DVD will be as follows:

This translates into 13 cents per disk or $19 for a $300 drive.

According to another source, the French weekly Electronique International Hebdo (March 24, 1997), Philips/Sony/Pioneer together will lay claim to 3.5% of the price of a DVD drive and 5 cents per disk.

Matsushita scored the patents for the cartridge, similar to that for its PD. adopted by the DVD Forum for DVD-RAM. They too will collect every time they pass go.

Don’t forget that every company that hopes to adopt phase-change technology must ultimately pay royalties to the tiny American firm that invented it, Energy Conversion Devices, under the Ovonic name. Its licensees already include Matsushita, Toshiba, Sony and the Industrial Research Institute of Taiwan.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 116 on September 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.