BlackBerry has joined Velos Media’s patent licensing pool, it has been announced. The Canadian telecoms company will provide its standard-essential patents to Velos’s pool of patents relating to high efficiency video coding (HEVC), according to a January 18 press release. BlackBerry has changed its focus in recent years from smartphones towards enterprise software and the ‘internet of things’. “We are happy to have BlackBerry join the Velos Media licensing platform and further enhance access to important HEVC innovations that enable consumers to enjoy richer video experiences,” said Fred Telecky, president of Velos. HEVC is a video compression standard used to deliver higher resolution. A Velos licence also includes HEVC patents from the remaining five members of the pool: Ericsson, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sharp and Sony. The pool was established in 2017. “Velos Media’s streamlined approach allows product manufacturers to have a reasonable and efficient path to secure a licence, and our patent holders to receive a fair return on their R&D investments,” Telecky said.