AV1’s open, royalty-free promise in question as Dolby sues Snapchat over codec

The promise of AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) as an open and royalty-free video codec is now under scrutiny following a recent lawsuit filed by Dolby Laboratories against Snap Inc. The legal action raises questions about potential patent infringements related to AV1, which was created by a coalition of technology companies as an alternative to other video codecs, including HEVC/H.265. Currently, several lawsuits are in progress in the United States concerning the utilization of HEVC. Prominent patent holders, such as Nokia and InterDigital, have taken legal steps against various hardware manufacturers and streaming services to demand licensing fees for the use of technologies deemed essential to HEVC. However, it is less common to see litigation surrounding the AV1 codec. The Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), which boasts members like Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix, asserts that it developed AV1 under a royalty-free patent policy, specifically the Alliance for Open Media Patent License 1.0. They emphasize that AV1 is backed by high-quality reference implementations that operate under a simple, permissive license, namely the BSD 3-Clause Clear License. Despite these claims, Dolby's lawsuit, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, contends that AV1 incorporates technologies protected by Dolby's patents, which have not been licensed for free. The filing states that AOMedia does not possess all the patents involved in the AV1 codec's implementations. It further argues that AV1 was developed after many critical video coding patents were already established, indicating that it utilizes technologies also found in HEVC, which are subject to existing third-party patent rights and corresponding licensing agreements. In the lawsuit, Dolby is seeking a jury trial and a declaration that it is not required to license its patents under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) obligations. Additionally, Dolby is asking the court to prevent Snap from any further alleged infringement. The complaint highlights four specific patents that Dolby claims Snap has violated, including technologies related to inter-plane prediction and coding schemes, among others.