OV signs Panasonic, does R&D gov't work

Make it eight deals with high-profile video providers for ObjectVideo. The video analytics provider on Jan. 9 announced it had signed a global patent licensing program with Panasonic.

Panasonic approached OV last year,  Raul Fernadez, chairman of Object Video, told me. OV is in discussions with six other manufacturers, he said.

With many of the biggest names in video surveillance now signed on with licensing agreements, will OV turn its attention away from its licensing program?

Yes and no, Fernandez said. OV is involved with other revenue-generating divisions, notably some R&D work with federal government clients, but licensing will continue to be an important business. There are new player in the video world all the time, Fernandez noted. And if OV lets up on its enforcement of patent infringement and licensing policies, current licensees would potentially be put at a disadvantage, he said.

However, Fernandez anticipates there will be less litigation involved in future licensing deals with video providers.

Aside from the licensing stuff, Fernandez wanted to talk about some software and services work OV is doing with "DOD and intelligence community sponsors … working on next-generation challenges for indexing, searching and retrieving images.”

It's the kind of government-sponsored R&D work that OV did more than a decade ago that led to today's mainstream analytic technologies (object tracking, object class, tripwire), Fernandez said.

The work OV is doing today with the government involves “a lot of indexing, image segmentation … taking images and crossmatching with large databases to geolocate images.”

Fernandez said it this research will propel “next generation innovations” for its government client, OV and the security industry.