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| Frequently Asked Questions | For your convenience, we have provided the following information on IPR licensing in the form of a collection of frequently asked questions. Please do not hesitate to contact us in case your question is not covered by the following. |
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| > What is a 'Standard'? | According to the ISO/IEC Guide 2-1991 a standard is "a document, established by consensus and approved by a recognized body, that provides, for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context". Integrating it within an application, or conforming its products with a standard is therefore considered as a guarantee of quality and result. |
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| > What is the PSQM/P.861 Standard? | PSQM, which stands for 'Perceptual Speech Quality Measurement' was the first perceptual voice quality testing standard introduced by OPTICOM and adopted in 1996 by the ITU-T as Recommendation P.861. PSQM was defined under the series P: TELEPHONE TRANSMISSION QUALITY, "Methods for objective and subjective assessment of quality" and covered the "Objective quality measurement of telephone-band (300 - 3400 Hz) speech codecs". PSQM was developed by Dr. John Beerends at KPN Research, nowadays the 'TNO department of Information and Communication Technology'. PSQM/P.861 was superseded and therefore withdrawn by PESQ/P.862 in 2001. PSQM has still been used until recently as a light weight and fast to calculate quality metrics for speech codecs. |
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| > What is the PESQ/P.862 Standard? | PESQ®, which stands for 'Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality' is an enhanced perceptual quality measurement for voice quality in telecommunications. As a successor to PSQM/P.861, PESQ was specifically developed to be applicable to end-to-end voice quality testing under real network conditions, like VoIP, POTS, ISDN, GSM etc.
The PESQ algorithm was standardized as ITU-T recommendation P.862 in 02/2001. Amendments were released 2003 for a MOS mapping for mobile network benchmarking (MOS-LQO, P.862.1) and 2005 for a wide-band extension to 7kHz (PESQ-WB, P.862.2). PESQ was developed by KPN Research, the Netherlands, nowadays the 'TNO department of Information and Communication Technology' and British Telecommunications (BT), lateron 'Psytechnics' and now 'Netscout Systems', by combining the two advanced speech quality measures PSQM+ and PAMS. Introduced by OPTICOM, PESQ has been globally adopted as the industry standard for testing and benchmarking of mobile networks. Enhanced PESQ OEM software tools are available for most platforms and operating sytems under license from OPTICOM. |
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| > What is the POLQA/P.863 Standard? | POLQA®, which stands for 'Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Analysis' - is the next-generation voice quality testing standard for fixed, mobile and IP-based networks that was adopted in 2011 as ITU-T Recommendation P.863 and successor to P.862/PESQ.
Since 2001, PESQ (ITU-T Rec. P.862) was the standardized benchmarking of voice quality in drive test tools and network testers; however during 2006-2011 the foreseen changes within networks placed a requirement onto ITU-T Study group 12 to develop an upgrade. POLQA is the long awaited technology upgrade covering latest speech coding and network transport technology, with higher accuracy for 3G, 4G/LTE and VoIP networks and extending support for networks delivering HD-quality voice services, previously unavailable within telecommunications.
The POLQA perceptual measurement algorithm is the joint development of OPTICOM, SwissQual and TNO, protected by copyrights and patents and available under license as software for various platforms. Leading Test & Measurement manufacturers have adopted POLQA/P.863 in their products, or use this technology during development, design and optimization of mobile phones, Smartphones, network components, or services. It is anticipated that POLQA/P.863 will supersede PESQ/P.862 in the future.
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| > What is the 3SQM/P.563 Standard? |
3SQM®, which stands for 'Single-Sided Speech Quality Measure', is a no-reference voice quality estimation algorithm, standardized 2006 by the ITU-T as Recommendation P.563. P.563 is based on a joint development of OPTICOM, Psytechnics and SwissQual. In contrast to many IP based MOS estimates, P.563 is the only standardized perceptual measurement algorithm that is capable to analyze the end-to-end listening quality based on a full pay-load analysis of the voice signal. P.563 has been verified in a competitive benchmark with prior unknown subjective test data by the experts of ITU-T study group 12. OPTICOM's 3SQM is an advanced implementation adding patented voice pre-processing to adapt P.563 to real-life network scenarios. |
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| > What is the PEVQ/J.247 Standard? |
PEVQ®, which stands for 'Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality' is a full-reference perceptual video quality measurement algorithm, standardized 2008 by the ITU-T under Recommendation J.247. PEVQ has been selected in a competitive benchmark by VQEG, the Video Quality Experts Group, and recommended to ITU-T for the standardization to analyze the picture quality of multi-media video applications in video telephony, video streaming and IPTV. PEVQ was developed by OPTICOM and is available in the PEXQ software suite for Windows and under OEM license for various platforms.
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| > What is the PEAQ/BS.1387 Standard? |
PEAQ®, which stands for 'Perceptual Evaluation of Audio Quality' is a perceptual measurement algorithm for audio quality measurement. In a joint cooperation under the leadership of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a group of leading sound quality experts developed a new measure for sound quality: PEAQ. In 1999, PEAQ was defined as the new ITU-R recommendation BS.1387, thus providing an advanced quality metrics to the world wide audio industry. PEAQ is applicable to high quality (CD) audio signals with an audio bandwidth of up to 20kHz.
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| > Why do I need a license to an ITU Standard? |
Standards are the result of important R&D investments by major players of an industry. When a company decides to contribute to the elaboration of a standard, it is understood that this standard will be publicly accessible. However, even if the 'content' of the standard is public, standardization bodies recognize the possibility for contributors to protect their inventions that are related to standards with patents. They nevertheless have the obligation to notify whether they will give access to these inventions under fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions. |
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| > What is an 'essential patent'? | The essentiality of a patent consists in the impossibility for a third party to use the standard without infringing this patent. There might be other patents, too, that apply to certain implementation. The ITU-T does, however, require that all essential patents are subject to the ITU-T patent policy 2.1 or 2.2 (see also 'ITU patent policy'). |
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| > Who owns the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)? |
The Perceptual Speech Quality Measure (PSQM/P.861) algorithm and the copyright therein is the property of KPN, and is protected by UK, US and other patents. Permission is granted to use PSQM for the purpose of evaluation in connection with the establishment of ITU-T recommendation P.861. Any other use of this software or the PSQM algorithm requires a license, which may be obtained from OPTICOM GmbH, Germany, who acts as the sole licensing agent for PSQM. The Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ/P.862) algorithm and the copyright therein is the property of British Telecommunications plc and Royal KPN NV, and is protected by UK, US and other patents. Permission is granted to use PESQ for the purpose of evaluation in connection with the establishment of ITU-T recommendation P.862. Any other use of this software or the PESQ algorithm requires a license, which may be obtained from OPTICOM GmbH, Germany, or Psytechnics Ltd., GB (now Netscout Systems), who both act as licensing agents for the IPR owners. PESQ® is a registered trademark of OPTICOM. The Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Evaluation (POLQA/P.863) algorithm and the copyrights therein are the property of OPTICOM, SwissQual, TNO and KPN (the 'POLQA Coalition'). POLQA/P.863 is protected by international patents and patent applications. POLQA® is a registered trademark of OPTICOM. OPTICOM acts as the sole licensing agent on behalf of the POLQA Coalition. For further details, please refer to our POLQA microsite: [www.polqa.info]. The Single-Sided Speech Quality Measure (3SQM/P.563) and the copyrights therein are the property of OPTICOM, SwissQual and Psytechnics (now Netscout Systems). 3SQM/P.563 is protected by international patents owned by OPTICOM, SwissQual, Psytechnics (now Netscout Systems) and KPN. OPTICOM acts as the sole one-stop licensing agent. The Perceptual Evaluation of Video Quality (PEVQ/J.247) algorithm and the copyrights therein are the property of OPTICOM and KPN. PEVQ/J.247 is protected by international patents and patent applications. PEVQ® is a registered trademark of OPTICOM. OPTICOM acts as the sole licensing agent for PEVQ. For further details, please refer to our PEVQ microsite: [www.pevq.org]. The Perceptual Evaluation of Audio Quality (PEAQ) algorithm and the copyright therein is the property of various owners and is protected by international patents. Permission is granted to use PEAQ for the purpose of evaluation in connection with the establishment of ITU-R recommendation BS.1387. Any other use of this software or the PEAQ algorithm requires a license. To date, no one-stop license agency agreement is in place, however, please feel free to contact OPTICOM GmbH, Germany for further details. PEAQ® is a registered trademark of OPTICOM. |
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| > Is an ITU Recommendation an Open Source Standard? | No, neither of the above Recommendations is open source and also there is no public source code available for download from the ITU-T website. Please keep in mind that most recommendations are defined by an algorithmic description and pseudo code for some essential parts of it. Exceptionally, there might be directly compilable source code as a reference for complex algorithms. This fact should not be misinterpreted to believe a recommendation would be open source.
See also: [Why do I need a license to an ITU standard?] |
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| > Now, tell me about all the patent details? | Of course, the published patents contain quite some technical details. Regarding the 'unpublished patents' (i.e. patent applications that have not yet been granted) you should not expect that the IPR owners want to see this information in the public domain. Usually, you may access such information under a confidentiality agreement in the course of negotiating a patent license agreement. |
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| > What is the 'ITU Patent Policy'? | An outline of the ITU patent policy is given in document TSB Circular 200 COM9/FC, titled 'Guidelines for the implementation of the TSB patent policy' (07. July 1999). The ITU itself does not want to get involved in patent licensing. Instead, the ITU proposes a patent database and pinpoints potential users to consult the patent database before using an ITU recommendation in a commercial context. The following is an excerpt of the ITU patent policy: "The ITU draws attention to the possibility that the practice or implementation of this Recommendation may involve the use of a claimed Intellectual Property Right. The ITU takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of claimed Intellectual Property Rights, whether asserted by ITU Member States and Sector Members or others outside of the Recommendation processes.” "As of the date of approval of this Recommendation, the ITU had/had not received notice of intellectual property, protected by patents, which may be required to implement this Recommendation. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information and are therefore strongly urged to consult the TSB patent database.” The URL for the database is: [http:// www.itu.int/ ITU-Databases/ TSBPatent/] |
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| > What are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory 'FRAND' terms? |
The ITU-T Recommendations above have been developed in accordance with the ITU-T software copyright and patent guidelines. OPTICOM as the sole licensing agent is prepared to grant licenses to "an unrestricted number of applicants on a worldwide, non-discriminatory basis and on reasonable terms and conditions to make, use and sell implementations of P.xxx" – so called fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms ("FRAND" terms) according to section 2.2 of the ITU patent policy: "If an ITU-T Recommendation is developed and such information as referred to in paragraph 1 has been disclosed, three different situations may arise:
In case of ITU-T Recommendations P.861, P.862, P.863, P.563, J.247 and ITU-R BS.1387, case 2.2 applies. |
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| > Where can I find information on the IPR? | For every ITU recommendation, where patent policy 2.2 has been claimed from a contributing party, information on the IPRs can be found in the ITU patent database. The URL for the database is: [http:// www.itu.int/ ITU-Databases/ TSBPatent/] |
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| > Who needs a license for commercial use? | This question is answered by international patent law. A patent proofs the origin of certain intellectual property. As soon as some third party starts to use this IPR, a license agreement is needed. The establishment of a license agreement does not necessarily mean that royalties need to be paid. Usually, for example, a license free of charge is often granted to use the IPR to develop a product. Only, if the product will be exploited commercially (i.e. sold), royalties may be charged for. However, this is the sole decision of the owner of the IPR, and consequently, this situation may differ from case to case. Users, and specifically companies that use the IPR within products to be sold, should however expect that the IPR owners want them to conduct a license agreement. The fact that during an early product phase the IPR owners may be reluctant to offer a license agreement, as only little revenues are to be expected at the beginning, should however not be interpreted as if they were prepared to grant a royalty free license. If you want to be on the safe side, you should approach the IPR owners before developing or releasing a product and ask for a license agreement. All other approaches might be considered as an infringement of patents. |
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| > I have already paid for the download/paper copy of the ITU recommendation, so does this include a license? |
No, it does not. See the above sections on the ITU patent policy. The ITU tends to provide the technical information of standard documents without getting involved in IPR issues. For this reason, the download fee just covers the expenses of the ITU rather than a royalty for a patent license. |
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| > What are the advantages of taking a license? | If you conduct a license agreement for a standard with the IPR owners you will gain some important advantages, which there are Competitive advantage Signing a license for the use of a patented technology provides a tremendous competitive advantage to a licensee who gets the ability to advertise that its products are fully indemnified. This may not be the case for its competition. This aspect could be decisive for a customer who is concerned about quality and security. Financial asset In addition to the legal aspects of a license, this contract must also be considered as a valuable asset. In the case of a public company, an IPO, or a merger, holding the proper rights to use third parties technologies could be as important as the products themselves. These licensing agreements may be used with cross licensing purposes in order to get the authorization to use the other technologies. They may also provide the right to use these patents within different products. Global image of a duly certified licensee Finally, in today's industry, the image and the reputation of a company are of the considered as important as its products. Should the quality and the transparency be important criteria for a company, possessing all the rights to use third parties patents is a good was to have a consistent image. It is a guarantee of never being engaged in communication operations that could affect drastically its value. |
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| > What happens if I do not take a license? | Infringement and lawsuit If you refrain from taking a license, but still you offer products for sale that infringe third parties patents, then you should be prepared to accept that the IPR owners may start legal proceedings against your company. The consequence may be a lawsuit, which outcome might not only be that you will have to pay for compensation later on, but in fact your business may got hurt significantly. Examples for popular patent lawsuits can easily be found in the daily press. Consequential damage Under some circumstances, the IPR owners may not only have the right to ask for royalties but also for a compensation for consequential damage. These figures may significantly exceed the range of costs, compared to the royalties you would have to pay under a license agreement. Consequences of publicity on sales figures Last but not least, private or public companies will both have to accept the consequences if the story of patent infringement shows up in the publicity. Most likely, the company image might seriously be hurt, examples for patent infringement stories might be found in the daily press. |
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| > What is a 'Patent License'? | A PESQ Patent License covers the development of a PESQ implementation based on the technical information, including the public C source code of PESQ, which is made available through the ITU (as part of recommendation P.862). For example, if you want to develop a DSP or chip implementation, and you want to make use of the public C source code of PESQ supplied by the ITU, you will only need a patent license agreement that covers the licensed use of the PESQ IPR within your product. |
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| > What is an 'OEM License'? | In addition to the patent license agreement, which forms an integral part of an OEM License agreement, it will also include a ready-to-go executable code, and/or additional functionality compared to the standardized version, technical support and/or future updates. For available OEM implementations, please refer to the [product section] of this website. |
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| > What is a 'Product License'? | Opposite to the patent license agreement, a Product License will not grant a license to copy, make, or have made copies, sell or exploit PESQ commercially. Instead, a product license will provide a limited runtime license agreement for the numbers of registered users. For available Products, please refer to the [product section] of this website. |
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| > Which license do I need? | If you want to develop (or you should already have developed) a PESQ implementation based on the technical information, including the public C source code of PESQ, which is made available through the ITU (as part of recommendation P.862), then all you need is a Patent License agreement. For example, if you want to develop a DSP or chip implementation, the standard package may perfectly suit your needs, as you will probably have to do your own re-write of the code anyway. If you want to license a ready-to-go executable code, including technical support or future updates, you should consider an OEM License agreement. And if you do not intend to sell PESQ products, but you want to use PESQ products within your organization, then you need to buy (= license) the number of PESQ Product Licenses, corresponding to the number of users. |
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| > Where can I sign up for a license? | As outlined above, in most cases OPTICOM is able to offer one-stop OEM license agreements as well as software implementations for various platforms and operating systems. This means, if you choose OPTICOM as your supplier you will have a single source for your technology as well as one single contract partner handling all IPR licensing for you. |
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| > Once I have signed up for a license on 'essential patents', will this indemnify me from any other obligation forever? | Once you will have signed up for a license agreement that covers the licensed use of essential patents, you will probably receive a list of patents and patent applications that exactly identify the patents you have licensed (e.g. for PESQ/P.862). You now have the rights to use these patents for commercial purposes according to the scope of the license agreement. A license agreement might be considered as insurance that you will get indemnified from the IPR owners regarding the use of their copyrights patents and trade marks, i.e. the intellectual property rights which they own. The license agreement should, however, never be considered an insurance that nowhere else in the world there weren't any other patents that you might also be using if you apply the 'licensed' technology in your product. With regard to new or foreign patents, this situation is exactly the same, as if you would not have signed up for a license agreement before. And it may also be the case that even if not identified in the ITU patent database, there might be other patents that cover an implementation of an ITU standard. This situation just reflects the reality: we are living in a huge world where many scientists might have had a similar idea before! |
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| > Who are the other licensees? How much do they sell? How much royalties do they pay? | Of course, these are compelling questions. But we will treat the contents of license agreements confidential. If you sign into a license agreement, you will benefit from the same confidentiality, of course. All we can say is that at OPTICOM we will make sure to cope with the ITU terms of fair and non-discriminatory, reasonable terms. So you can be assured that others will not be granted more favourable terms than yourself. |
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| Licensing FAQ |
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What is a 'Standard'? [read more] What is the PSQM/P.861 Standard? [read more] What is the PESQ/P.862 Standard? [read more] What is the POLQA/P.863 Standard? [read more] What is the 3SQM/P.563 Standard? [read more] What is the PEVQ/J.247 Standard? [read more] What is the PEAQ/BS.1387 Standard? [read more] Why do I need a license to an ITU Standard? [read more] What is an 'essential patent'? [read more] Who owns the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)? [read more] Is an ITU Recommendation an Open Source Standard? [read more] Now, tell me about all the patent details? [read more] What is the 'ITU Patent Policy'? [read more] What are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory 'FRAND' terms? [read more] Where can I find information on the IPR? [read more] Who needs a license for commercial use? [read more] I have already paid for the download/paper copy of the ITU recommendation, so does this include a license? [read more] What are the advantages of taking a license? [read more] What happens if I do not take a license? [read more] What is a 'Patent License'? [read more] What is an 'OEM License'? [read more] What is a 'Product License'? [read more] Which license do I need? [read more] Where can I sign up for a license? [read more] Once I have signed up for a license on 'essential patents', will this indemnify me from any other obligation forever? [read more] Who are the other licensees? How much do they sell? How much royalties do they pay? [read more] |
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