Exactly. Having been involved in the H264 process (as well as On2/VPx), I saw first-hand how the big guys abused the process at every turn. Their attitude was not "we're doing this for everyone", but rather, "cool, with this patent pool thing we can collude on pricing and it's totally legal!"
Then they spent the rest of the time jockeying to get their allies into position to ratify their precious patent-protected IP into the standard so they could reap the royalties and remain in a position of control.
To their credit, the people who actually ran the standards process attempted to thwart this behavior (they even tried to produce a "royalty free baseline"), but the powers that be were just too entrenched and committed to their predatory ways for it to succeed.
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Exactly. Having been involved in the H264 process (as well as On2/VPx), I saw first-hand how the big guys abused the process at every turn. Their attitude was not "we're doing this for everyone", but rather, "cool, with this patent pool thing we can collude on pricing and it's totally legal!"
Then they spent the rest of the time jockeying to get their allies into position to ratify their precious patent-protected IP into the standard so they could reap the royalties and remain in a position of control.
To their credit, the people who actually ran the standards process attempted to thwart this behavior (they even tried to produce a "royalty free baseline"), but the powers that be were just too entrenched and committed to their predatory ways for it to succeed.
I was there, I saw.