South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of flat-screen televisions, on Friday said it had signed an agreement to share digital-TV broadcasting patents with other top TV manufacturers. Samsung said in a filing to the Korea Exchange that it was part of a pool that includes home rival LG Electronics, LG subsidiary Zenith Electronics, Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial, Mitsubishi Electric, Royal Philips Electronics and Cisco Systems unit Scientific Atlanta. The agreement, which runs until the end of 2016, charges a royalty of $5 for each television set using digital-broadcasting technology approved by the Advanced Television Systems Committee.
"The decision to form a pool was made in order to minimize the risk of patent disputes," a Samsung representative told Reuters. TV sets using ATSC standards are sold mainly in the United States, South Korea, Canada and Mexico, an LG spokeswoman said. Both Samsung and LG declined to give further information on the pool system. U.S. broadcasters are required to switch to digital signals from analog by early 2009. But U.S. communications regulators recently approved new rules designed to ensure that local broadcast channels can be viewed on traditional analog TVs for three years after the switchover.
