Domestic disc player companies survive in adversity as DVD patent fees pile up 2009-10-24 12:03 There is a saying in the industry: "Selling DVDs is worse than selling cabbage." The progress of industrial design and the The mature application of the disc player industry has gradually become a life-saving straw for the disc player industry. Patent fees have always been a pain in the hearts of domestic disc player companies. After the 3C Alliance settled the patent fee collection last year, starting from September 1 this year, DVD6C licensing union The body's target is again China's disc player companies, which have begun to implement global licensing of core patents for DVD audio and high-end recordable DVD products, and will also begin to collect patent fees from January next year. 3C and 6C patent fees continue to weigh on the shoulders of domestic disc player companies. Domestic disc player companies whose profits are getting lower and lower are not discouraged. The huge export disc player market makes them unable to bear to give up. Between the patent fees and the huge market attack, domestic disc player companies are experiencing pain and happiness. Patent fees are stacked up. Starting from September 1st, seven companies including Time Warner, Hitachi, IBM, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Toshiba and JVC (referred to as DVD6C) began to implement global licensing of core patents for DVD audio and recordable DVD products. In addition, seven Japanese and American companies also stated that when they jointly granted patent rights to DVD recorders, they would start collecting patent fees from January next year. The charging scope of DVD6C has been expanded again this time, and will include two parts: driver and media. Specific products include DVD-Audio, DVD Random Access Memory, DVD-RW and DVD-R. These products will face a maximum royalty fee of US$8 per unit, while the royalty fee for DVD audio discs will be reduced to US$0.05 per unit from January 1, 2004. The patent fees for the remaining products will be the same as those last issued. The patent charging standards are consistent. In addition, the DVD recorder patent fee will be 4% of the selling price of each unit or $6, whichever is higher. Profits are falling frequently. Before 6C will charge patent fees for new projects this time, starting from the beginning of this year, every domestic DVD exported must pay an additional $9 patent fee to the 3C and 6C alliances, while the export price is only $60. to US$80, domestic sales of DVDs are also required to pay patent fees. With the overlapping patent fees and the falling price of DVDs, the profits of disc player companies are getting lower and lower. There is now a saying in the industry: "Selling DVDs is worse than selling cabbage." Industry insiders said that the current profit of each DVD is only about 5 yuan. Although a series of patent fees will be levied, the price of DVDs will not rise. A person from TCL revealed that before the 3C and 6C patent fees were collected, these patent fees were handed over to the 3C and 6C alliances by the upstream suppliers of movement and laser heads. Now the 3C and 6C alliances have to charge patent fees from DVD machine manufacturers. The result of negotiations between domestic DVD manufacturers and various patent alliances is that the patent fees are now paid by the machine manufacturers, but the patent alliances are required to charge less or no fees from upstream suppliers. Collect patent fees to reduce the price of upstream supplied products, so the collection of patent fees will not affect product prices. According to industry insiders, with the price of movement falling in the second half of this year, the price of complete DVD machines is expected to drop. Never give up Profits are getting smaller and smaller, but major disc player manufacturers still persist in giving up, and new high-end products are constantly coming out. Why do you still invest a lot of money when you know you don’t have much money to make? An insider from TCL revealed the secret: Although the profit of a single DVD is very low, the huge market demand and the formation of large-scale production can still make considerable profits. Among the entire home appliance industry, China's DVD industry is the only one that can be called the world's factory. At present, DVDs made in China account for more than 70% of global production. Last year, China exported more than 70 million DVDs, with an export value of US$3.5 billion. TCL people said that there are more than 2,000 DVD patents in total. For Chinese disc player companies that do not have patents, when market standards are controlled by others, they should make breakthroughs in other aspects, especially in the application of the product itself. A breakthrough at the technical level. ———————————————————————— Chinese color TVs are charged a patent fee of US$10 per unit by foreign countries.
How much patent fees does China have to pay for color TVs exported to the United States? Last Friday, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products disclosed in its latest "U.S. Color TV Patent Distribution Analysis Report" that foreign patent holders have officially requested to sign a licensing agreement with Chinese color TV companies and have proposed an asking price - per color TV The total patent fees collected have exceeded US$10. In the first ten months of 2006, my country's color TV exports were 12.816 million units, an increase of 38% over the same period last year. Wang Bingke, deputy director of the Economic System Reform and Economic Operation Department of the Ministry of Information Industry, said at the "2006 China Digital TV Industry Terminal Product Development Forum" that my country's color TV output reached 90 million units in 2006, accounting for 50% of the world's output. about. The expansion of color TV exports has attracted patent holders from many countries, such as Canadian Tri-Vision, Sony, Thomson, FUNAI, etc. to file patent claims against Chinese color TV companies and demand payment of patent royalties. The US Federal Communications Commission has previously announced that color TVs exported to the United States from March 1, 2007 must comply with the standard technical specifications developed by ATSC? Advanced Television Standards Committee? Along with technical specifications are patents. For example, although Sony, which has just been incorporated into ATSC, has only four core technologies, mainly digital interface and POD module technology, the patent fees it charges are very high. Its charging model is 600 yen per color TV plus total sales. 2% of revenue, which equates to a fee of at least $7 per unit. The "U.S. Color TV Patent Distribution Analysis Report" stated that according to a preliminary search, there are tens of thousands of patent projects involving TV technology, and there are about 1,353 patents involving LCD and plasma TVs in the patent documents. The main aspects covered by the patent include liquid crystal displays, display panels, thin film transistors, distributors, color filters, video processing systems, receiving systems, tuners, decoders, shielding functions, chips, speakers, set-top boxes, closed subtitles, and character overlays. technology, picture-in-picture, satellite reception, signal reception, channel selection/retrieval/identification functions, etc. A detailed list of patent fees obtained from the State Intellectual Property Office in December last year showed that the patent fees to be paid for color TV exports to the United States starting from March 2007 may be as high as US$23 per unit, but the official has not confirmed this. It was not until this "U.S. Color TV Patent Distribution Analysis Report" that the asking prices of foreign patent holders were disclosed for the first time. Based on this severe challenge, Wang Bingke warned at the Unification Forum that domestic companies should pay attention to the issue of patent fees levied by the United States on my country's color TVs. According to the reporter’s knowledge, in order to reduce the impact of patent fees on China’s color TV exports, many domestic color TV manufacturers have changed their previous situation of working independently. Among them, 13 color TV companies have basically reached an intention to establish a digital TV patent pool and are preparing to establish a joint venture. patent company, in order to partially offset the mutual patent fees and maintain the export competitiveness of China's color TVs. Industry insiders said that the lack of patented technology has always been the main problem that has plagued China's color TV industry from large to strong. How to break through the bottleneck of core patented technology and establish its own right to speak has become a threshold that Chinese color TV companies must cross when going abroad.