Access Advance added 12 patent holders, including Sharp, M&K Holdings, Tagivan II, Hanwha Vision and Telechips, to its Video Distribution Patent Pool in the first half of 2026. The company said the additions expand licensing coverage for video decoding, processing and streaming media delivery.
Patent pool licensing affects the cost and legal framework for codecs and streaming delivery across the broadcast and streaming supply chain. For IBC readers, this matters because codec and distribution licensing is a recurring issue for vendors, platform operators and device makers building around modern video standards. The next signal to watch is whether more patent owners join the VDP Pool, and how Access Advance frames coverage across additional codecs or streaming use cases.
Access Advance’s VDP Pool matters because codec licensing has moved from a narrow engineering issue into a procurement and legal line item for streaming platforms. Streaming Media reported that Access Advance had six licensees by March 2026, and that Roku joined in January 2026 as a licensee without becoming a licensor, a sign that the pool is already being used as an operating-license mechanism rather than just a patent cross-licensing club. (streamingmedia.com)
The economics also help explain why Access Advance keeps attracting attention. A March 2026 comparison found that the pool includes a cap of $72 million, while the rival Avanci Video program had not published a cap at that point, and Access Advance’s structure also includes a royalty waiver for smaller services, which lowers the barrier to entry for emerging distributors. That combination makes the pool relevant not only to rights holders, but to streaming finance teams trying to model codec exposure before a launch or migration. (streamingmedia.com)
Access Advance is also operating in a crowded licensing landscape, not an isolated one. Streaming Media noted that the pool launched with partial overlap against other codec programs and that licensees may still need bilateral deals for full coverage, which means new licensors can improve the pool’s utility without eliminating the need for outside negotiations. Independent reporting in April 2026 showed the pool already being benchmarked against other video royalty programs, a sign that buyers are comparing portfolio coverage and cost structure as much as individual patent counts. (streamingmedia.com)
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