Because of different patented technologies, 3C Alliance (Philips, Sony and Pioneer) once charged China a patent fee of $5 per DVD, while 6C Alliance (Hitachi, Matsushita Electric, mitsubishi electric, Toshiba, time warner Inc. Company and JVC) once charged China a patent fee of $4 per DVD. Thomson charges China enterprises about 1- 1.5 USD per DVD.
80% of the world's DVDs are produced in China. Besides Thomson, companies such as Dolby and DTS may also put pressure on China enterprises on the issue of patent fees.
In fact, in addition to 6C, 3C, 1C, Dolby and DTS, there are also small foreign manufacturers and organizations that claim to own patented technology and ask China DVD manufacturers for patent fees.
According to the materials provided by China Electronic Audio Industry Association (CA IA), there are a long list of multinational enterprises and organizations claiming DVD patent fees from China, including 6C made up of Hitachi, Panasonic, JVC, Mitsubishi, Toshiba and time warner Inc. (IBM also joined 6C), 3C made up of Sony, Pioneer and Philips (LG also joined 3C) and 1C Thomson.
The patent fees charged by these multinational enterprises and organizations to China manufacturers ranged from US$ 65,438+0 to US$ 65,438+00. Moreover, these prices are basically the result of negotiations between relevant parties. For example, Thomson initially asked for $2, but now it has dropped to about 1 dollar; Mpeg-la originally asked for $4, but now it's down to $2.50, but it needs to sign another agreement with the company.
The collection of patent fees from domestic DVD enterprises began with the 3C alliance formed by Philips, Sony and Pioneer (for the convenience of the industry, the alliance formed by these three enterprises is called 3C). Later, 1C formed by Thomson himself, 6C alliance composed of six companies including Toshiba and Hitachi, and Dolby and DTS all claimed to own some patents on DVD.
At present, enterprises in China have reached an agreement with 3C and 6C on the issue of patent fees, with 3C charging $5 per machine and 6C charging $4 per machine. At this point, the patent fee for each DVD in China has increased to 10, which means that the domestic disk drive industry, which has already made a meager profit, is even more difficult to survive.
It is estimated that domestic DVD exports account for more than 70% of world DVD exports. In 2002, China exported $3.5 billion of DVD players, exceeding the export of color TV sets by $654.38+300 million. The DVD market is still growing at an annual rate of 25%.
Faced with such a huge market, international developers suddenly attacked with intellectual property protection measures. Naturally, it is not difficult to understand that for a simple arithmetic problem, each DVD produced by domestic manufacturers needs at least 100 RMB from Xiangyang Giant to 200 yuan, and the cost of each DVD will also increase 0.7 yuan.
A patent charging enterprise pointed out in a statement: "The agreement signed with China will further strengthen the company's licensing business, which has become one of the important sources of income for the company in 2003." It is reported that the company's intellectual property income accounts for 6% of global operating income. Philips is a member of 3C and owns more than 654.38 million patents worldwide.
The question is whether the patent fee should be paid or not, which is beyond the scope of discussion. The whole world is paying for it, and China has no reason to be special. However, as the largest producer in the world, every product produced has to pay a great price abroad, which is a sore point for domestic enterprises.
EVD, which claims to own independent intellectual property rights of China enterprises, has not got rid of the embarrassment of technology patents. The reason is that although China enterprises own most of the patents of EVD, the core technology is still in the hands of American enterprises. Because EVD adopts the design of backward compatible DVD, domestic enterprises have to pay not only the patent fee of EVD, but also the patent fee of DVD, which is also the reason why the cost of EVD has increased instead of falling. The price of the newly launched EVD is 1998 yuan. It is said that the price is lower, but it is still much higher than the DVD below 1,000 yuan on the market.
The film source is another bottleneck. According to industry sources, the production of EVD discs requires a single-sided and multi-layered process, which is much more complicated than the single-sided and single-layered process of ordinary DVD discs, so many domestic manufacturers cannot achieve it. Although domestic disc drive enterprises such as Shinco are making active efforts for film sources, it is said that many film source manufacturers in Europe, America, China and Hongkong have started to authorize the release of high-definition EVD discs, but today, when DVD discs are dominant, how many consumers who are used to buying pirated DVD discs below 10 yuan will choose the latter?