Thomson licensed its MP3 music technology to both Nokia and SonyEricsson on Wednesday afternoon, setting the stage for licensed, MP3-enabled cell phones.
Thomson, which controls the licensing for the combined Fraunhofer/Thomson MP3 patent portfolio, said the deal would expand upon the estimated 100 million devices which can play MP3 players today. Thomsaid it expects that number to increase by 50 percent by the end of this year.
Thomsons royalty rates for hardware manufacturers call for both Nokia and Sony Ericsson to pay at least $0.75 per hardware decoder per unit, with a minimum of $15,000 per year paid to Thomson. The royalties can either be paid by the OEM or the codec manufacturer.
For the whole story, check out the ExtremeTech article