Eli here…
This is the last episode of this season of Clause 8, and we recently crossed the 100-episode mark. When I started the show, I didn’t have a number like that in mind; I just wanted to talk to the people actually shaping the patent system.
I’ll save the proper thank-yous for the bottom. For now: it felt right to close the season with Kevin Mack, the new president of Via Licensing Alliance, for a conversation about where patent licensing is going in the age of AI — and why he’s optimistic about the future.
On this episode…
Modern patent pools have almost always formed around a formal standard, set by a standard-setting organization, with FRAND commitments attached.
But, on this episode, Mack describes a broader future for collaborative licensing. Via isn’t only looking at “black and white standards,” as he put it, but also at technologies that function like standards in the market even if no standards body ever formally declared them to be one.
Picture AI: if enough companies converge on the same techniques for the same reasons — the way they would around a formal standard, only without anyone declaring one — that technology starts to function like a standard, too. The difference is the patents around it are scattered and unresolved, with no clean map of who holds what. Mack's plan is to do for that what Via already does for formal standards — pull the relevant patents into a pool so the technology can be licensed in one efficient place, instead of fought over one dispute at a time.
Mack has worked the patent system from most sides — he prosecuted patents, litigated them at Skadden, and spent years at Dolby running compliance and sitting in the standardization rooms — and he now runs the administrator that the 2023 merger of Via Licensing and MPEG LA made the largest in consumer electronics. Dolby keeps turning up in Via's orbit — his predecessor, Heath Hoglund, came from there too and Kevin talks about the connection. He inherits an organization in motion. Hoglund and the previous chief licensing officer, Jane Bu, have joined other pool administrators. Via handed its HEVC pool to Access Advance, which Mack frames as the right call for an ecosystem where pool fragmentation helps no one. It's pushing into semiconductors, with a new pool announced in the fall and a DRAM memory program he says is close to launch. And he's stood up a strategy-and-growth group — presumably where the de facto-standards thinking is coming from.
His call for pools comes as some implementers seem to be searching for alternatives. AV1, the royalty-free video codec from the big tech–backed Alliance for Open Media, and — newer — SAIL, the Shared AI License Foundation, a royalty-free patent commons for “AI foundational models” launched this spring to at least create the appearance of taking patents off the table entirely.
Mack offers support for some of these initiatives but is candid that trying to create "a brand new technology that's competitive with the current marketplace without stepping on someone else's technology" can be "a little bit naive."
What keeps him optimistic is the policy weather: coming out of Via's recent summit in Rome, he reads the US posture as friendlier to patent owners than it's been in years — officials openly weighing injunctions for SEP holders, questioning whether an SEP automatically confers market power, treating rate fights as ordinary negotiations rather than antitrust problems. In his telling, the wind is finally at the patent owners' back — and that naturally creates a bigger need for licensing administrators like Via.
The episode covers:
How Via’s model actually works — and the “tipping point” that turns a pool from a handful of licensors into thousands of licensees
The leadership turnover, the HEVC pool’s move to Access Advance, and Via’s strategy-and-growth group
Via’s push into semiconductors, including a new DRAM memory program
“De facto” standards — why Via’s next pools may form around technology no standards body ever blessed
AV1 and the royalty-free question, and why Mack thinks royalty-free rarely stays free
SAIL, and whether AI patents are as “foundational” as advertised
Efficient infringement, patents as property rights, and why so many companies ultimately take a license
The mood out of Via’s summit in Rome — and a US patent system Mack sees tilting back toward patent owners
Eli again…thank you, thank you, thank you!
To everyone who made Clause 8 part of how they keep up with IP: thank you. That’s not a small thing, and I don’t take it for granted.
This was the season Clause 8 went all-in on video — a real in-person studio, in-person video recordings, and the official launch of the Clause 8 YouTube channel. AA few episodes found real audiences there faster than I'd expected. My producer Dustin and his PodTechs team made that leap possible and defined the future for the show.
There was also some nice outside recognition. Law360 recently put Clause 8 first in its roundup, 5 Podcasts to Keep IP Attys Entertained and Informed. (Feedspot has put Clause 8 again at the top of its IP podcast list.)
And a huge thank you to Tradespace for its generous support over the last two seasons. I had a lot of fun working together and helping them grow during a particularly eventful time for the market.
Next season, I’m looking forward to working with a wider set of sponsors to tell the story of what the AI boom will mean for the IP field.
Most of all, none of this would have been possible without YOU - the listeners (and viewers!). As I’ve said before, the podcast only exists because enough of you care about IP to listen (or watch!) in your free time. I’m beyond grateful for that.
And an extra thank you to everyone who helped share Clause 8 with others. Because of you, the show is still growing — and I’m excited to bring you more in future seasons.
🎧 Watch the full episode above or listen on your favorite podcast app—and subscribe to the Clause 8 YouTube channel for bonus content.
