DVD licensing cartel sued under anti-trust

Cory Doctorow 12:09 am Tue Jan 25, 2005

The cartel that controls patents on DVD technologies is being sued by Chinese DVD makers, who are ebing forced to pay $20 per player, much higher than US manufacturers pay. The DVD makers have a good anti-trust case that could seriously bust this cartel.

Patent fees of around US$20 per unit are currently levied on manufacturers of Chinese DVD players, accounting for some 20 to 30 per cent of their production costs.

However, US manufacturers' patent fees are much lower, only 3 to 5 per cent of their production costs.

The high patent fees have hit Chinese DVD manufacturers hard, with exports of Chinese DVD players falling sharply last year.

Link

(via Engadget)

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