Technicolor Rejoins HEVC Advance as Licensee, 3 Years After Withdrawing

Technicolor is the newest licensee to join HEVC Advance, said the H.265 patent-pool company Tuesday. It's an "important milestone," said HEVC Advance, which launched in 2015 with Technicolor as one of five founding members (see 1503260045). Technicolor withdrew less than a year later to license its H.265 patent portfolio directly to device manufacturers, unhappy with the HEVC Advance decision to charge content-streaming royalties (see 1602040042). HEVC Advance later dropped its content fees on “anecdotal evidence” the royalties were hurting H.265 adoption (see 1803140037). "Technicolor did participate in the development phase of the pool but ultimately decided not to become a founding licensor (admittedly at the last moment)," emailed HEVC Advance CEO Pete Moller Tuesday. "Once someone joins as a licensor they cannot withdraw until 12/31/2025 at the earliest. In Technicolor’s case they 'left' before they signed any of the documents." When Technicolor departed, "they did indicate at that time that they planned to license their patents on their own," said Moller. "Ultimately, they sold a number to Dolby (which are in our pool) and then last year 'sold' their entire IP business to InterDigital."