Maximizing the value of Intellectual Property (IP)

The Technicolor Intellectual Property and Licensing business unit protects and monetizes the company’s extensive patent portfolio. We rank among the worldwide leaders in patent licensing for audio and video technologies.

Licensing activities generated consolidated net revenues of € 386 million in 2009.

The IP&L team employs about 220 people based in 13 locations, principally in France, the U. S., Germany, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, China and Taiwan.

A broad range of licensing programs

Rather than licensing individual patents, the Technicolor IP&L unit develops licensing programs. These enable a licensee to obtain a license covering all of our patents related to a particular application (including patents which may be filed subsequent to granting of the license).

We currently have approximately 1,100 licensing agreements across 14 licensing programs covering a diverse mix of video products and services.

Technicolor's licensing activities were consolidated in 1999, following the integration of the RCA patent and license management business (transferred from General Electric Co.) into the Thomson/Technicolor Licensing organization. The Technicolor IP&L unit also handles trademark licensing for usage of such brands as RCA in a number of consumer electronics product categories.

We manage licensing of the mp3 digital music file format, with over 650 licensees to date. The mp3 format was co-developed by Thomson and the Fraunhofer Institute IIS.

A dynamic patent portfolio

As of December 31, 2009, we held approximately 42,000 patents and applications worldwide, derived from more than 6,000 inventions. We filed 460 priority applications for new inventions in 2009.

Technicolor holds significant patent positions in numerous key areas:

• Digital decoders
• Digital TV and HDTV
• Optical modules for DVD and Blu-ray, disc players
• MPEG video compression
• Mp3 audio format
• Interactive TV systems
• Display technologies such as LCD, plasma and OLED

Our team of patent attorneys works closely with Research teams to identify patentable ideas, draft patent applications and track third-party usage of our patents.

We selectively seek new patent portfolio acquisition opportunities. The IP&L unit also manages and licenses intellectual property arising from cooperative programs with leading research institutes.

Contact : ip@technicolor.com