HEVC Advance, an independent licensing administrator, is designed to offer an efficient and transparent means for accessing and licensing HEVC essential patents, thereby bringing HEVC—a key enabler of Ultra HD 4K deployments – to the global market faster. It said that it is actively soliciting input from market participants and considering adjustments to arrive at a royalty structure that enables continued and rapid adoption of HEVC and brings the associated benefits to stakeholders within the media and technology industries.

The industry group has now decided to reduce royalty rates, and has capped fees for both hardware manufacturers and content distributors. Licensing fees in major global markets like the US, Europe and Japan will be set at $1.20 per unit; and at $0.80 per for connected devices like set-tops and computers and $0.40 per unit for mobile devices. Fees top out at $30 million for mobile devices, and $20 million for TVs and connected devices. A combined cap of $40 million applies across all three categories.

Companies participating in the HEVC Advance patent pool include General Electric, Technicolor, Laboratories, Royal Philips Electronics and Mitsubishi Electric.