VVC Patent Pool Expands
Samsung and Sharp Join VVC Advance Patent Pool, Strengthening Access Advance Licensing
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Samsung Electronics and Sharp Corporation have joined the VVC Advance Patent Pool, licensing administrator Access Advance LLC announced on July 5, 2026. Both companies signed on as Licensors and Licensees — meaning they contribute patents to the pool and pay to use others' patents. National Post reported the move gives Access Advance licensing rights to a significant majority of the essential patents underlying VVC, the world's newest major video standard.
VVC, formally known as H.266, delivers roughly 50% better compression than its predecessor HEVC/H.265. That means the same video quality at half the file size. Samsung's entry is especially significant: the company holds a 4.96% share of global VVC patent families and is the world's largest TV and smartphone maker, according to Montreal Gazette.
Samsung's License Signals Mass Hardware Adoption of VVC
Samsung joining as a Licensee is the bigger deal for the industry. Because Samsung dominates the global TV and smartphone markets, its commitment means VVC-capable hardware will reach consumers at massive scale. This breaks a classic chicken-and-egg problem: content creators wouldn't stream in VVC without compatible devices, and device makers wouldn't add VVC support without content. Samsung's signature ends that standoff, according to Edmonton Sun.
With Samsung now in the pool, VVC Advance counts six of the world's top smartphone brands as Licensees: Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, vivo, and Honor. Together, those brands represent roughly 62% of the global smartphone market. Access Advance CEO Peter Moller said the growth "reflects the broad range of industries and companies that are moving toward VVC as the next standard for video delivery," according to Fort McMurray Today.
How Access Advance Consolidated the VVC Patent Landscape
Licensing video codecs has historically been a legal mess. When HEVC launched, three separate patent pools charged competing fees. That "royalty stacking" slowed adoption for years. Access Advance moved to prevent the same fate for VVC. In December 2025, it acquired rival Via LA's HEVC and VVC programs, eliminating the split market and creating a single licensing window for hardware makers, according to Stratford Beacon Herald.
The pool now manages more than 5,400 VVC patents and over 29,000 HEVC patents. Smart TV coverage is also growing fast. Samsung (31.9% market share), Sony, and Panasonic are all in the pool. Combined with LG's 16.5% share, VVC Advance now has reach into roughly 60.8% of the global Smart TV market, according to Woodstock Sentinel Review.
Streaming Giants Now Have a Clear Path to Switch to VVC
Google added native VVC hardware support to Android 17 in February 2026. Future Samsung Galaxy devices are now likely to include hardware-accelerated VVC decoding. That means streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime can encode their libraries in VVC and reach a huge share of active devices immediately, according to Hanna Herald.
The financial incentive is real. VVC's 50% bitrate reduction compared to HEVC directly cuts content delivery network (CDN) costs — the fees streaming platforms pay to move video data across the internet. Rising memory costs have also pushed device makers toward bandwidth-efficient formats. Moller noted that the program now spans "semiconductor design, consumer electronics, and mobile technology," according to Seaforth Huron Expositor.
Not Everyone Is Celebrating the Patent Pool Model
Some major patent holders are staying out. InterDigital, which owns a large VVC portfolio, has avoided joining Access Advance or any pool. The company argues that direct, one-on-one licensing deals — like its agreement with LG Electronics — deliver better returns than being "diluted" by a shared pool distribution, according to Clinton News Record.
Open-source advocates push back harder. Groups like Mozilla argue that patent pools are a "patent tax" that hurts software developers. They back AV1, a rival video format with zero licensing fees. AV1 is already used by YouTube and Netflix. The debate over paid versus royalty-free codecs is far from settled, even as VVC gains ground, according to The Observer.
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