Editing MP3 (section)

== {{anchor|Licensing and patent issues}}Licensing, ownership, and legislation ==

The basic MP3 decoding and encoding technology is patent-free in the European Union, all patents having expired there by 2012 at the latest. In the United States, the technology became substantially patent-free on 16 April 2017 (see below). MP3 patents expired in the US between 2007 and 2017. In the past, many organizations have claimed ownership of [[patent]]s related to MP3 decoding or encoding. These claims led to several legal threats and actions from a variety of sources. As a result, in countries that allow [[software patent]]s, uncertainty about which patents must have been licensed to create MP3 products without committing patent infringement was common in the early stages of the technology's adoption.

The initial near-complete MPEG-1 standard (parts 1, 2, and 3) was publicly available on 6 December 1991 as ISO CD 11172.<ref name="Patel" /><ref name="mpegfa31.txt" /> In most countries, patents cannot be filed after [[prior art]] has been made public, and patents expire 20 years after the initial filing date, which can be up to 12 months later for filings in other countries. As a result, patents required to implement MP3 expired in most countries by December 2012, 21 years after the publication of ISO CD 11172.

An exception is the United States, where patents in force but filed before 8 June 1995 expire after the later of 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the priority date. A lengthy patent prosecution process may result in a patent issued much later than normally expected (see [[submarine patent]]s). The various MP3-related patents expired on dates ranging from 2007 to 2017 in the United States.<ref name="big-list" /> Patents for anything disclosed in ISO CD 11172 filed a year or more after its publication are questionable. If only the known MP3 patents filed by December 1992 are considered, then MP3 decoding has been patent-free in the US since 22 September 2015, when {{US patent|5812672}}, which had a PCT filing in October 1992, expired.<ref name="Cogliati" /><ref name="US5812672" /><ref name="Patent expiration" /> If the longest-running patent mentioned in the aforementioned references is taken as a measure, then the MP3 technology became patent-free in the United States on 16 April 2017, when {{US patent|6009399}}, held<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US6009399/en|title=Method and apparatus for encoding digital signals employing bit allocation using combinations of different threshold models to achieve desired bit rates|access-date=21 January 2023|archive-date=21 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230121152351/https://patents.google.com/patent/US6009399/en|url-status=live}}</ref> and administered by [[Technicolor SA|Technicolor]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mp3licensing.com/patents/index.html|title=mp3licensing.com – Patents|work=mp3licensing.com|access-date=10 May 2008|archive-date=9 May 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509182032/http://www.mp3licensing.com/patents/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> expired. As a result, many [[free and open-source software]] projects, such as the [[Fedora operating system]], have decided to start shipping MP3 support by default, and users will no longer have to resort to installing unofficial packages maintained by third party software repositories for MP3 playback or encoding.<ref>{{Cite web| url=https://fedoramagazine.org/full-mp3-support-coming-soon-to-fedora/| title=Full MP3 support coming soon to Fedora| date=2017-05-05| access-date=17 June 2017| archive-date=27 June 2017| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170627062915/https://fedoramagazine.org/full-MP3-support-coming-soon-to-fedora/| url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Technicolor SA|Technicolor]] (formerly called Thomson Consumer Electronics) claimed to control MP3 licensing of the Layer 3 patents in many countries, including the United States, Japan, Canada, and EU countries.<ref name="ffii" /> Technicolor had been actively enforcing these patents.<ref name="Technicolor" /> MP3 license revenues from Technicolor's administration generated about €100 million for the Fraunhofer Society in 2005.<ref name="Kistenfeger" /> In September 1998, the Fraunhofer Institute sent a letter to several developers of MP3 software stating that a license was required to "distribute and/or sell decoders and/or encoders". The letter claimed that unlicensed products "infringe the patent rights of Fraunhofer and Thomson. To make, sell or distribute products using the [MPEG Layer-3] standard and thus our patents, you need to obtain a license under these patents from us."<ref name="chillingeffects" /> This led to the situation where the [[LAME]] MP3 encoder project could not offer its users official binaries that could run on their computer. The project's position was that as source code, LAME was simply a description of how an MP3 encoder ''could'' be implemented. Unofficially, compiled binaries were available from other sources.

Sisvel S.p.A., a Luxembourg-based company, administers licenses for patents applying to MPEG Audio.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programs/audio-and-video-coding-decoding/mpeg-audio/introduction | title = SISVEL's MPEG Audio licensing programme | access-date = 8 February 2017 | archive-date = 11 February 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170211075921/http://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programs/audio-and-video-coding-decoding/mpeg-audio/introduction | url-status = live }}</ref> They, along with its United States subsidiary Audio MPEG, Inc. previously sued Thomson for patent infringement on MP3 technology,<ref name="ZDNet India" /> but those disputes were resolved in November 2005 with Sisvel granting Thomson a license to their patents. Motorola followed soon after and signed with Sisvel to license MP3-related patents in December 2005.<ref name="SISVEL" /> Except for three patents, the US patents administered by Sisvel<ref>{{cite web |title=US MPEG Audio patents |url=https://www.sisvel.com/MPEG_Audio/US_Patents.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161027094014/http://www.sisvel.com/MPEG_Audio/US_Patents.pdf |archive-date=27 October 2016 |access-date=7 April 2017 |publisher=Sisvel}}</ref> had all expired in 2015. The three exceptions are: {{US patent|5878080}}, expired February 2017; {{US patent|5850456}}, expired February 2017; and {{US patent|5960037}}, expired 9 April 2017. As of around the first quarter of 2023, Sisvel's licensing program has become a legacy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Licensing Programs - Legacy programs |url=https://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programs/legacy-programs |website=www.sisvel.com |access-date=15 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230219230637/https://www.sisvel.com/licensing-programs/legacy-programs |archive-date=February 19, 2023 |language=en-gb}}</ref>

In September 2006, German officials seized MP3 players from [[SanDisk]]'s booth at the [[IFA show]] in Berlin after an Italian patents firm won an injunction on behalf of Sisvel against SanDisk in a dispute over licensing rights. The injunction was later reversed by a Berlin judge,<ref name="SanDisk MP3 seizure" /> but that reversal was in turn blocked the same day by another judge from the same court, "bringing the Patent Wild West to Germany" in the words of one commentator.<ref name="Patent Wild West" /> In February 2007, Texas MP3 Technologies sued Apple, Samsung Electronics and Sandisk in [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas|eastern Texas federal court]], claiming infringement of a portable MP3 player patent that Texas MP3 said it had been assigned. Apple, Samsung, and Sandisk all settled the claims against them in January 2009.<ref name="law360" /><ref name="Kelly" />

[[Alcatel-Lucent]] has asserted several MP3 coding and compression patents, allegedly inherited from AT&T-Bell Labs, in litigation of its own. In November 2006, before the companies' merger, [[Alcatel-Lucent v. Microsoft|Alcatel sued Microsoft]] for allegedly infringing seven patents. On 23 February 2007, a San Diego jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent US $1.52 billion in damages for infringement of two of them.<ref name="MP3 payout" /> The court subsequently revoked the award, however, finding that one patent had not been infringed and that the other was not owned by Alcatel-Lucent; it was co-owned by [[AT&T]] and Fraunhofer, who had licensed it to [[Microsoft]], the judge ruled.<ref name="Microsoft wins reversal" /> That defense judgment was upheld on appeal in 2008.<ref name="Alcatel-Lucent" />