Licensing

What is AMR?

Who are the companies represented by VoiceAge?

Who needs to obtain a license to AMR narrowband patents?

Can a license be granted for intermediate products or implementations?

Can a license be granted for wireless applications?

What's included with a patent license agreement?

How do I get a license?

If I'm using the AMR standard only for decoding signal, do I have to purchase the AMR narrowband license?

What's the effect on licensees when new patents are added to the AMR Narrowband Patent Pool?

What are the pricing categories?

Are there any up-front fees associated with AMR narrowband patent license agreement?

How does per-channel pricing work?

Is there a maximum royalty?

Are there volume discounts for “professional” products?

About AMR

What is AMR?
The Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) standard is a speech coding algorithm that operates on narrowband signals (~200 to 3400 Hz) at variable bit rates in the range of of 4.75 to 12.2 kbps. This technology was initially developed for the GSM system and later adopted by the 3GPP as the mandatory codec for 3G wireless systems based on evolved GSM core networks (WCDMA, EDGE, GPRS). The AMR narrowband codec was standardized by ETSI/3GPP in 1999 and was also recently included in the CableLabs® PacketCable™ 2.0 specification.

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Who are the companies represented by VoiceAge?
VoiceAge represents the four members of the joint patent pool: Ericsson, Nokia, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) and VoiceAge.

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Who needs to obtain a license to AMR narrowband patents?
Manufacturers or developers of complete (or virtually complete) encoder, decoder or encoder/decoder non-wireless products for end-users and for which the use of AMR without a license would necessarily and unavoidably infringe the licensed patents require an AMR narrowband license.

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Can a license be granted for intermediate products or implementations?
An AMR narrowband license can be granted for certain implementations. An implementation means a decoder, encoder or other intermediate product that is not a complete, ready-to-use, end-user final product — for example, a plug-in to a content creation tool.

If an implementation meets all of the following conditions, then it must be covered by an AMR narrowband patent license:

It is sold, rented, leased or licensed to an end-user.
It is used for one (1) application only.

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Can a license be granted for wireless applications?
Individual rights for wireless telephony applications are licensed directly by Nokia and Ericsson. For other wireless applications, please contact VoiceAge.

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What's included with a patent license agreement?
The AMR Narrowband Patent Agreement grants patent rights only, that is, the right to use patented technology of the AMR licensors. No software code is delivered.

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How do I get a license?
Contact us in any of the following ways:

Click Request Info Now here or on the left
Email: licensing@voiceage.com
Phone: +1.514.737.4940
Fax: +1.514.908.2037
Mail:
Licensing
VoiceAge Corporation
750 Lucerne, Suite 250
Montreal (Quebec) H3R 2H6
Canada

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If I'm using the AMR standard only for decoding signals, do I have to purchase the AMR narrowband license?
Yes, the AMR narrowband license is required for either encoding or decoding voice signals as well as for both.

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What's the effect on existing licenses when new patents are added to the AMR Narrowband Patent Pool?
There is no incremental cost to existing licenses when new patents and licensors are added during the current term of the license.

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Pricing

What are the pricing categories?
There are four pricing categories: one for standard pricing and three others for “non-standard” products.

Category 1 (standard pricing) applies to licensed products for which either channels (also called ports) or real-time channels can be counted. This includes but is not limited to VoIP gateways. This category excludes all downloaded applications and IP phones. Please contact VoiceAge for further information.
Category 2 applies to applications that do not fall under Category 1 and that are also not personal computer products (Category 3) or PDAs (Category 4). Typical examples include non-real-time applications like off-line content transcoders and professional content creation tools.
Category 3 applies to products for personal computers, for example, consumer content creation tools and media players. These products are considered to be “consumer” encoder or decoder products. They are sold directly to individual consumers and are for non-commercial use only. For example, personal computers do not include PDAs and smart phones.
Category 4 applies ONLY to content applications for PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) that do not have circuit-switched telephony capability compliant with any mobile telephony standard (for example, this category does not include smart phones). Examples of products that belong to this category include MMS clients or media players.

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Are there any up-front fees associated with the AMR narrowband patent license agreement?
Yes, there is an initial fee of US$6,500 due upon execution of the license. This is a one-time payment and is not an annual fee. In addition to the initial fee, there is an annual minimum royalty fee of US$10,000. If the royalty fees paid in any one year are less than US$10,000, then at the end of the year, the License Administrator will charge and require payment of the difference. No portion of the annual fee is charged retroactively nor can any portion be carried forward.

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How does per-channel pricing work?
Royalty fees are calculated on the basis of channel (also called port) volume. An annual royalty cap applies (see next question). The cumulative number of physical channels or real-time channels is counted over time, and pricing is applied according to the channel volume reached (please see the Licensing Terms for prices). When a channel volume threshold is reached, a new price level, based on volume, is applied. The count is cumulative from year to year.

Here's a detailed example:

Year	Quarter	# Channels Sold	Pricing
1	1st	500K	(100K X 0.99) + (400K X 0.90) = US$459,000
1	2nd	500K	(500K X 0.80) = US$400,000
1	3rd	750K	(750K X 0.70) = US$525,000
1	4th	1000K	(1M X 0.70) = US$700,000
Total Year 1		2.75M cumulative channels	US$2,000,000 (rather than US$2,084,000 because the Maximum Annual Royalty was reached)
2	1st	500K	(500K X 0.70) = US$350,000
2	2nd	400K	(400K X 0.70) = US$280,000
2	3rd	500K	(500K X 0.70) = US$350,000
2	4th	600K	(600K X 0.70) = US$420,000
Total Year 2		4.75M cumulative channels	US$1,400,000 (yearly total is reset for Maximum Annual Royalty calculation)

For licensed products in which the number of channels or real-time channels can vary (for example, when a gateway dynamically creates a session), the royalty calculation is based on the maximum number of channels or real-time channels that the product can handle. If the maximum number of channels or real-time channels has not been determined, then the royalty calculation will be based on 10,000 channels or real-time channels.

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Is there a maximum royalty? (See the example above)
Yes. Royalty fees are calculated and must be paid on an annual basis starting from the date of signing the license contract. A maximum annual royalty (“cap”) applies to each of the four pricing categories. Even though the volume is cumulative over the years, this royalty cap calculation is reset annually and is independent of any royalties paid in the previous year. For information on the cap that applies to each pricing category, please see the Licensing Terms.

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Are there volume discounts for “professional” products?
There are no volume discounts for professional products simply because these products are typically not sold in volume. Professional products have a significantly higher price tag compared to consumer products, which are sold in large volumes.

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