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There are a lot of rumors around in
recent days about the issue of DVD patents. The patent holders
especially 3c parts manufacturers are claiming that Chinese DVD
player manufacturers are unjustifiably taking over the majority of
market share by avoid paying patent fees. It seems imperative for
Chinese DVD manufacturer to clarify some facts and clearly state
its stand.
Since1999, China’s manufacturers are taking a positive attitude to
negotiate royalty issues with 3c parts manufacturers, and Chinese
manufacturers have clearly expressed their desires to pay the
royalties as long as it is a fair play. Since the majority of the
patent rights are integrated in the loader and encoding/decoding
chip-sets, Chinese sides suggested a most easy and practical way
to collect the royalties, that is, to add the royalties on the key
parts because the key parts suppliers are no more than ten, on the
other hand, the assemblers are more than hundreds. If some
assemblers pay the royalties and some not, it will make an unfair
competition in the market.
Should pay them royalties for the patents used in the machine, few
people noted the fact that 3c parts manufacturers are just
assemblers in the field, all the key parts such as loader, decoder
chipset are supplied by 3C and 6C themselves or their related
and/or associated companies. However, the benefit groups refused
the suggestion and persisted on charging the patent fee to the DVD
player assemblers rather than the loader and chip-set suppliers.
There is one more fact that worth notice, that is, some members of
the benefit groups are leading 3c parts manufacturers themselves,
which may well explain why the benefit groups would prefer the
tremendous trouble to deal with hundreds of DVD assembly
manufacturers to settlement the royalties by easier and practical
way to collect the royalties from the a fewer key parts and 3c
parts manufacturers. |
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