One-Blue, LLC, a company that holds licensing patents from licensors essential to Blu-ray Disc (BD) products, will reduce most of its royalty rates by 20% as of April 1, 2017.

Because BD products are backwards compatible, the One-Blue license programs for BD products include patents that are essential to any of the optical standards, namely the BD, DVD and CD standards. With this royalty reduction, One-Blue responds to the current and continuing expiration of patents relating to the DVD standards. The 20% reduction of royalty rates will cover the One-Blue license programs for the majority of BD products, including players, recorders, drives, PCs and software. The One-Blue royalty rate for a BD player, for example, will decrease from US $ 9 to US $ 7.20 and the royalty rate for a BD recorder from US $ 12 to US $ 9.60 for shipments of licensed products occurring on or after April 1, 2017.

One-Blue is currently working to establish a licensing program for Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc (UHD-BD) products, which is expected to be ready in the coming months.

Members of One-Blue, LLC include ARRIS Enterprises LLC, Columbia Technology Ventures, CyberLink, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co. Ltd., HP Inc., JVCKENWOOD, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Taiyo Yuden and Yamaha.

blish a licensing program for Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc (UHD-BD) products, which is expected to be ready in the coming months.