Have the patents for H.264 MPEG-4 AVC expired yet?
NO! ☹️ (in most countries, including EU and US)
YES! 😍 (in some countries, for example in Canada, all patents already expired)
This article only considers H.264 Version 3 / High Profiles, which are the most common used profiles. These profiles were standardized in 2005-03-01, so only patents filed before this date are reported here, unless otherwise noted.
In some countries patents already expired:
- last patent in Canada, CA 2525937, expired on 2024-03-30.
The patent list managed by Via Licensing Alliance is available at: https://www.via-la.com/licensing-2/avc-h-264/avc-h-264-patent-list/
Expiration dates are according to "Google Patents" and may not always be correct. For example for US 7826532 patent Google reports an expiration date of 2027-11-29, while Via Licensing Alliance reports it as expired in 2023-09-04.
See also on Wikipedia: MPEG LA, AVC Licensing
This is about H.264 or AVC. For MPEG-4 Part 2 (for example Xvid) see Have the patents for MPEG-4 Visual expired yet?
This is not legal advice. Here's a legal advice: call your lawyer.
European patents
[edit]Note that possibly last active EU patents for H.264 Version 1, containing Baseline, Main, and Extended profiles were EP 1611747, EP 1791369 and EP 2209319 which all expired on 2024-03-26.
Patents possibly essential for High profiles
[edit]These patents were all filed before 2005-03-01 (specification release date of Version 3 / High Profiles). It is unknown if all of them are actually needed for the Version 3 / High Profiles:
- 2025-01-26: EP 1709801 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
- 2025-01-26: EP 2384002 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
Patents for newer profiles (SVC, MVC, ...)
[edit]These patents were filed before 2005-03-01 (specification release date of Version 3 / High Profiles) but are needed only for newer than Version 3 / High Profiles:
- 2025-12-20: EP 1839442 (Orange SA) - patent for Version 8 / Scalable Video Coding (SVC) profiles
- 2025-12-13: EP 1836852 (Siemens AG) - patent for Version 8 / Scalable Video Coding (SVC) profiles
US patents
[edit]Patents added to MPEG LA patent list before 2012
[edit]These patents were in the patent list before 2012 (according to https://scratchpad.fandom.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_patents) and all filed before 2005-03-01 (specification release date of Version 3 / High Profiles). It is unknown which of them are actually needed for the Version 3 / High Profiles:
- 2027-09-09: US 7684489 (Cisco Technology, Inc.)
- 2027-08-09: US 7609767 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2027-01-16: US 7702013 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.)
- 2026-08-03: US 7630435 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
- 2026-06-01: US 7379608 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.)
- 2026-05-29: US 7599435 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.)
- 2026-05-14: US 7711053 (LG Electronics Inc.)
- 2026-05-14: US 7711054 (LG Electronics Inc.)
- 2026-05-07: US 7706451 (LG Electronics Inc.)
- 2026-04-04: US 7742528 (Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1)
- 2026-03-08: US 7542510 (Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1)
- 2026-02-13: US 7515635 (Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1) - confirmed invalid in March 2023: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2023/4/17/ip-bridge-patent-confirmed-invalid
- 2026-02-12: US 7400681 (Cisco Systems Canada Co.)
- 2025-12-26: US 7327788 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
- 2025-12-07: US 7505485 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2025-11-02: US 7616691 (Toshiba Corporation)
- 2025-10-09: US 7346216 (NTT DOCOMO, INC.)
- 2025-10-07: US 7586924 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.)
- 2025-08-20: US 7280700 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2025-07-23: US 7286710 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.)
- 2025-07-20: US 7248740 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2025-06-24: US 7394853 (Tagivan II LLC)
- 2025-05-16: US 7561623 (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.)
- 2025-04-20: US 7266149 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2025-04-07: US 7386048 (Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation)
- 2025-04-04: US 7339991 (Apple Inc.)
- 2025-03-13: US 7620110 (LG Electronics Inc.)
- 2025-03-05: US 7496143 (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.)
- 2025-02-27: US 7843999 (LG Electronics Inc.)
- 2025-02-01: US 7120197 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2024-12-29: US 7149247 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2024-12-24: US 7116830 (Microsoft Corporation)
- 2024-12-21: US 7362807 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
- 2024-12-04: US 7292636 (Apple Inc.)
- 2024-10-20: US 7639742 (Sony Group Corporation)
- 2024-10-12: US 7664180 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
- 2024-09-03: US 7209520 (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
Patents added to MPEG LA patent list since 2012
[edit]These patents were added in the patent list after 2012 (according to https://scratchpad.fandom.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_patents) and all filed before 2005-03-01 (specification release date of Version 3 / High Profiles). Someone should figure if they are essential for Version 3 / High Profiles or just needed for later H.264 Versions:
- 2030-11-26: US 9356620 (Siemens AG)
- 2026-02-01: US 7324593 (NTT DOCOMO, INC.)
- 2025-07-19: US 7372905 (Godo Kaisha IP Bridge 1)
- 2025-05-04: US 7319415 (Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation)
US Patents owned by Nokia
[edit]Nokia sued HP and Amazon in October 2023 in multiple countries such as USA, UK and more for violating H.264/H.265 patents[1][2][3]. Here is a list of the US patents in their lawsuits and their expiration dates (it is not clear if these patents are all needed for H.264, or if they are needed for H.265 or something else):
- 2028-01-21: US 8204134
- 2027-05-19: US 8050321
- 2026-12-03: US 8175148
- 2026-05-03: US 7724818
- 2025-12-11: US 7532808
- 2024-10-15: US 8144764
US Patent owned by Videolabs Inc
[edit]PanOptis sued Huawei in 2018 for h264 patent infringement and won. Huawei had to pay $7.7m in damages after a jury ruled that the patent is valid and is necessary.[4][5] This patent is now owned by Videolabs Inc.
- 2024-08-16: US 7769238
Options
[edit]OpenH264 binaries from Cisco can be used free of charge.
Version 1 of H.264 (containing Baseline, Main, and Extended profiles) may have all patents already expired in some country (for example in Europe), you could consider using it.
Use other royalty-free codecs, like AV1, VP9, VP8, Theora.
Use codecs with expired patents, like MPEG-4 Part 2.