Access Advance extends early-bird period for video streaming patent license to September 30, 2025: service announcement

Context: Earlier this year, patent pool administrator Access Advance launched its Video Distribution Pool (VDP), a one-stop shop offering to video streamers (January 16, 2025 ip fray article). Operators of video streaming services are notoriously underlicensed to standard-essential patents (SEPs). Last month, Access Advance announced major players who joined as both licensors (of which the pool now has more than 30) and licensees (July 1, 2025 ip fray article). On Thursday, Access Advance quoted several of the new contributors in a press release (July 31, 2025 ip fray article).

What’s new: Access Advance has just announced “an extension of its Founding Licensee incentive program for the Video Distribution Patent (VDP) Pool through September 30, 2025.” Those who take a license before the end of that early-bird period “will receive a 25% reduction in standard royalty rates and a complete waiver of back royalties through 2024.” The original program ended on June 30, 2025, but Access Advance’s licensors were able to agree on this extension, opening the window one more time.

Direct impact: There is nothing in Access Advance’s press release that amounts to a threat of litigation commencing shortly after the end of the extended early-bird period. But implementers, especially the hyperscalers among them, will have to reassess the pro’s and con’s of taking a license now versus remaining unlicensed. In any FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing debate in court, implementers declining to take a license on early-bird terms must assume that their refusal of those advantageous terms will be held against them. In other words, the risk of being deemed an unwilling licensee and, as a result, enjoined in certain jurisdictions will increase. The press release says that some have proposed an extension until yearend 2025, but it would be a gamble to bet on the pool licensors accommodating such requests.

Wider ramifications: Patent pools, and sometimes also companies engaging in bilateral licensing, increasingly offer earlybird incentives to reward licensing and dissuade from holdout.
Access Advance CEO Peter Moller is quoted in today’s press release as follows:

“The strong initial response to our VDP Pool launch demonstrates the market’s need for simplified video codec licensing. By extending these Founding Licensee benefits, we’re providing additional time for video streaming providers to evaluate how the VDP Pool can simplify and optimize their patent licensing while delivering meaningful savings in royalty payments. Some companies have asked us to extend the qualifying date for Founding Licensee incentives to December 31, 2025, but the Licensors have not yet made a decision about that request.”
We do not know how likely or unlikely a further extension is, but implementers who let this deadline slip may wake up in October and find that one or more of their competitors secured a favorable rate, while the window has closed for them. And if no one secured early-bird benefits, there is the possibility of a blocking minority of licensors determining that enough is enough, and opting for enforcement rather than another extension.

Back-royalties for unlicensed past use may be very substantial in some companies’ cases, adding another litigation risk (damages in U.S. court) to the possibility of injunctions in certain non-U.S. jurisdictions.