MPEG LA announced today that the fourth meeting of essential Blu-ray Disc patent owners was held in New York on February 6-7 for the purpose of creating a joint license providing access to essential patents, as an alternative to negotiating separate licenses. "Significant progress has been made in identifying licensing terms for Blu-ray Disc products such as players, recorders, drives, software, recordable discs and prerecorded discs," the company said in a brief statement.

Participating companies include CyberLink Corporation; Dell Inc.; Hewlett-Packard Company; Hitachi Ltd.; Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.; LG Electronics Inc.; Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic); Mitsubishi Electric Corporation; Pioneer Corporation; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.; Sharp Corporation; Sonic Solutions; Sony Corporation; TDK Corporation; Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.; and Warner Home Video Inc.

"The participation of this group of diverse companies in the development of a joint license bodes well for offering an efficient way to address intellectual property licensing needs for advanced optical devices, discs and related implementations," said MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn. "The group especially appreciates the input and views received from interested parties, including potential licensees, in all related industry sectors. MPEG LA welcomes the opportunity to facilitate any and all efforts to assist users with their advanced optical disc technology choices in order to give consumers the benefit of innovative information and entertainment applications."

Additional patent holder meetings are planned, MPEG LA said.