The companies joining Columbia University in the action are France Telecom, General Instrument Corp of the US, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Philips, Victor Co of Japan and Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
MPEG refers to the Moving Picture Experts Group. The MPEG-2 standard enables the storage and playing of full-length films on DVDs, digital satellite TV broadcasts and digital cable TV. The lawsuit says that computers sold by Compaq use the MPEG-2 standard for “encoding and decoding video signals [and in DVD] movies and DVD-ROM media."
The patent for the standard is held by seven members of MPEG-2 LA, a company formed by 16 owners of technology patents. The company licensees the patents to third parties. Compaq refused to join the company’s existing 250 licensees.
MPEG-2 LA has said it will sue other PC manufacturers that infringe its patents. It has written to Apple Computer, Dell Computer and Hewlett-Packard, demanding that they take out licenses.