History (1997): Six Companies of DVD Forum Agreed on Licensing Terms

Six companies (but not all) of the DVD Forum have agreed on licensing terms for their technology.

Licensees will have to pay royalties of 4% for DVD-Video players, DVD-ROM drives and DVD recorders with a minimum payment of $4, along with 7.5% per DVD disk.

The six firms are Hitachi, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Time Warner, Toshiba and JVC.

Matsuhita alone claims it was granted 620 patents in Japan for its DVD-RAM drives, 120 for USA and other countries!

Meanwhile, Philips, Sony and Pioneer are asking for 3.5% per DVD drive and 5 cents per disk.

All this is beginning to add up, particularly since nothing prevents other firms from also adding their part to the bill, on the basis of other patents.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 118 on November 1997 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.