In an announcement Wednesday, the big three stated that they have joined with other Blu-ray patent holders to allow manufacturers to procure one license that covers all the necessary patents for Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and CD. The new licensing program, which will be run by an independent company, will be based in the United States, with branch offices in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

The yet-to-be-named new company will allow any patent holders for Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and CD technologies to join the new licensing entity as both a licensor and shareholder.

The move is intended to promote the growth of Blu-ray Disc products. It should succeed in doing so, too--and not just by virtue of reducing the number of places a manufacturer must go to get licensing approval for its product.

The new approach to licensing will be able to offer a significant discount--expected to be at least 40 percent--on the collective patent fees, as compared with the costs for a manufacturer that pursues the patents independently. Fees for the new product licenses will be US$9.50 for a Blu-ray Disc player and $14 for a Blu-ray Disc recorder; disc fees will be $0.11 for a read-only disc, $0.12 for a recordable disc, and $0.15 for a rewritable disc.

One interesting bit in Wednesday's announcement got me wondering. The release makes a reference to the new program as "introducing special measures to encourage companies selling Blu-ray Disc products to comply with their license obligations. The program also includes measures to easily identify unlicensed products in the market and a system to address those who may not have obtained proper licenses for Blu-ray Disc products."