16 months after Arecont publicly threatened Axis [link no longer available] and 7 months after Axis took Arecont to patent 'court', Axis has won, with Arecont canceling all claims of the multi-imager patent they threatened Axis with.
While this is clearly a victory for Axis, Arecont tells IPVM that they are not done yet, with a stronger patent in progress.
Inside, we examine the issues and the impact on the market.
As noted, Arecont did speak to IPVM, and it did help improve the coverage for them, because it allowed us to include the section about the stronger patent. If Arecont had been willing to cite the actual patent, and we could have validated it, the overall tone of the article would be more positive to Arecont.
The fact that Arecont canceled their patent claims, after threatening Axis with it, is negative. There is no way around that. However, to the extent that Arecont can make a concrete case for further strength, we would reflect that now or in the future.
Does this mean we are likely to see more/better multi-imagers hit the market? Companies such as Panasonic, Bosch, and others are sorely lacking right now. I have been wondering what the hesitation is. Perhaps they were waiting for this case to conclude?
Companies such as Panasonic, Bosch, and others are sorely lacking right now.
I think the legal issue is a factor but not the biggest one. For example, H.265 has legal issues but that has not stopped many manufacturers from adding that.
The bigger issue is the investment needed to build a multi-imager. It's not like you can get this as a reference design from hisilicon and just put your label on it. You have to actually spend real R&D designing the mechanics, ensuring all the imagers work / stream, etc.
Related to that is lower overall spend on new products from incumbent manufacturers as the race to the bottom over the last few years has made video surveillance less attractive for investment.
The other factor is the size of this segment. When segments are first starting out, by definition they are small and for large companies less attractive. Large companies then need to guess / bet whether the market will grow fast enough to be significant.
All that said, a number of factors are coming together that is making this segment increasingly attractive.
