Mobile TV is next IPR battleground

OUR SOURCE at Qualcomm was, the other day, defending his company's mobile TV proposition - MediaFLO. He let slip, however, that Nokia might have patents on DVB-H that rival handset vendors have overlooked.

The provision of broadcast TV to mobile phones is currently a minimum of a three horse race. Champing at the bit is DVB-H which is backed very heavily by Nokia. It is also the technology of choice for the EU.

At least that is what the European Commission's Viviane Reding said last month at CeBIT. By it's not that clear cut. In Europe 17 countries have chosen DVB-H as their standard but five countries also support DMB - including the UK and Germany.

The Commision's argument is straightforward. By dictating that the whole of the EU must adopt GSM, the bureaucrats accidentally created the world's most successful cellular standard.

So naturally they want to repeat the trick and dictate what everybody should use for mobile TV. By contrast, bodies like UK watchdog, Ofcom, have stated that licence holders can do whatever they like with certain allocated parts of the spectrum.

One argument against rival solution, MediaFLO, is that it's controlled by one company - Qualcomm. So the prospect of paying loads of money to that chip vendor might put some states off. Even though it is being trialled by BSkyB in the UK, for example.

But, if our source is right, the way that Nokia has implemented DVB-H might equally be protected by patents which the handset vendor could decide to enforce.

The third player is DAB and in the UK, Virgin Mobile has gone ahead with BT Movio's implementation of the technology - DAB-IP. BT is not averse to enforcing its IP rights. The INQ recalls that at one stage BT claimed parts of the Internet were covered by its patents.

So it looks like the lawyers wil be able to pay their golf fees for some years to come. µ