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Toshiba not selling HD DVD patents

by on27 August 2008

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Too similar to China’s CBHD standard


While Toshiba lost the HD disc war to Blu-ray, it seems that they are not ready to throw in the towel all the way just yet. Taiwanese optical disc drive makers have been trying to acquire the Toshiba HD DVD patents without success.

It seems that Toshiba for the moment seems to think that the large market in China might be a hope in recovering some of the money that the company lost on HD DVD. China’s CBHD standard was developed in conjunction with Toshiba and is rooted in HD DVD’s patented technology.

China is the largest possible market that has yet to have a taste of HD content and the CBHD standard was developed to leverage growth in China that is targeted at a reasonable cost.

The end game, however, might be the ability to use the CBHD standard as leverage in order to get Sony to offer more favorable terms on Blu-ray for the Chinese market, rather than CBHD becoming the format of choice in China.

However, it does look like Toshiba might be able to recoup at least some money from this process, but ultimately the patents might be worth more to sue others who choose to violate them.

Last modified on 27 August 2008
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