Giovanni Ballocca draws on a long and varied career in R&D to help the company identify opportunities in new technical fields

In March, Sisvel appointed Giovanni Ballocca as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). A technologist with a global reputation, Ballocca is Sisvel’s first CTO in nearly 10 years, assuming the post as the company confronts major changes in the technology landscape.

Ballocca, a Turin native, joined Sisvel Technology soon after its establishment in 2008 and most recently led its work on codec-related technologies. Prior to that, he spent a long career in R&D leading teams developing technologies at the intersection of broadcast, multimedia and communications. Within Sisvel and among its partners and clients, he is known for combining deep knowledge in specific domains with an ability to master new fields quickly. This background provides an ideal vantage point from which to understand the technologies in which Sisvel is active and how changes in the landscape may affect the business.

Sisvel Insights recently sat down with Ballocca to learn more about his background in the world of research, his exploits in driving Sisvel’s VP9 and AV1 licensing efforts and his top priorities as CTO.

Tell us about your technical background and how you got involved with the technologies that would bring you into contact with Sisvel.

My academic background is in particle physics. During my master's studies, I was doing research with Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics; and for my thesis, I spent over a year conducting experimental work in Hamburg.

I was also quite passionate about computational sciences. A whole track of my academic career was dedicated to studying computational methods, simulations, data analysis – all of which play a big role in experimental physics.

After graduating, I started working as a software developer before moving to an R&D centre, where I had the chance to work in different areas including high-performance computing, distributed computing and virtual software. Eventually I came to be involved in digital multimedia, which is how I would later encounter Sisvel.

Can you describe how Sisvel came onto your radar?

I was working at an R&D centre called CSP, which was co-owned by the University of Turin, the Polytechnic University of Turin and the regional government. At the beginning of the 2000s, the transition to digital broadcast was getting started and we at CSP were involved in that process on behalf of the local administration.

Through that work, I came to head up DTV Lab, a joint project between CSP, Telecom Italia and Sun Microsystems. Our aim was to experiment and demonstrate the possibility of developing interactive services on digital television platforms. That meant we were working on everything from video and audio coding to networking and interactive applications.

It was at this point that I first got involved in the world of DVB, the digital broadcasting standard that was being implemented in Europe at the time. Alongside our work on interactive services, we also ran a trial on television distribution via mobile networks. A technology called DVB-H was being developed for this purpose and we conducted a technical trial of it for an Italian mobile operator called Wind.

This was when Sisvel entered the picture: the company was attempting to develop a licensing programme related to DVB-H. We formed a collaboration – my team evaluated DVB-H related patents to develop an understanding of the IP landscape around the standard. Sisvel Tech had been established just a year earlier and I worked closely with its then-president, Paulo D’Amato, on this project. A year later, in 2009, I decided to join Sisvel and I’ve been here ever since.

Up to this point, how often had patents played a role in your R&D career?

Not very often at all. There was only one other time when we filed a patent on an R&D product, for a method we had invented of using watermarks embedded in video coding to trigger interactive applications.

There were few researchers with knowledge of the DVB-H standard at the time, which created an opportunity for me to collaborate with Sisvel on the technical analysis preliminary to the formation of a pool. It was a chance to see how a licensing programme comes together first-hand and this model of bringing a technology to the market sparked enough interest that a short time later, I joined the Sisvel Tech team.

What happened with the DVB-H project?

Both the DVB-H standard and competing proprietary technologies failed to gain adoption. It became clear that video could simply be distributed via over-the-top networks or online using HTTP, so there was little need for dedicated mobile networks, which would have required extensive investment from network operators. Later evolutions of these technologies are still being discussed and developed, but apparently never getting off the ground, for much the same reason. It’s an interesting theoretical proposition, but there is no real business model for it.

This is a story that is common to many of the technologies that are developed, interesting as they may be. That is one reason why it is important that innovators realise a return when their inventions gain wide adoption and create entirely new markets and ecosystems.

What was Sisvel Tech like at the time you joined, and how did it develop over the years?

It was a small R&D group dedicated to developing technologies and inventions in-house within the Sisvel Group. For me, this was a move from a public sector research centre to an industrial research centre. A key part of my new role was forming research collaborations. Various groups were active in digital multimedia in Turin at the time, the biggest one being the RAI Research Centre. Almost immediately after I joined Sisvel, we established a partnership with them and set up a joint team of eight researchers.

At that time, 3D television was being touted as the next big thing and this became a major focus of our R&D efforts. We started experimenting and developing technologies in this area we ultimately designed our own backward-compatible format for 3D television, which we called the Tile Format.

We recognised that the best way to have this accepted by the market was to get it included in standards such as H.264 and HEVC, so we started working with all the organisations involved in video standardisation, including MPEG, DVB and the ITU. This endeavour essentially took up 100% of our time for a period of five or six years, during which we travelled around the world doing demos, attending standardisation meetings and so on.

The wind-down of the MPEG Audio programme around 2015 was a key moment for Sisvel Tech, which pivoted much more towards supporting licensing operations. I worked on a programme dedicated to recommendation engines which allowed us to develop a good experience with non SEP licensing. At that point, I shifted focus to VP9 and AV1.

VP9 and AV1 have been hugely successful programmes for Sisvel – tell us about your role in these.

I was deeply involved in the establishment of these programmes: all of the technical discussions, the negotiations with major industry players that ultimately led to the RPX transaction, as well as the RPX deal itself.

One of my key roles was to keep all of the patent owners technically aligned on the scope and running of the programme. These programmes were very different from a typical patent pool because VP9 and AV1specifications were developed by closed consortia and so were not known to any of our patent owners. This meant that Sisvel carried out a lot of technical work supporting many of our patent owners.

It was a fascinating experience, because the Sisvel Tech team was directly involved in programme management like never before.

This must have been very different from what you had done in your R&D career or even in your early days with Sisvel?

Absolutely – it was a new experience to be across the negotiating table from some of the largest companies in the tech industry and engaging with highly competent and sometimes very aggressive technical experts on the other side. It was a real challenge, but also very interesting. Of course, there were many other parts that were less interesting, such as reading through thousands of claim charts; but when you are working hands-on to close the deals, you get to see all that hard work pay off.

As a software expert yourself, what was your strategy for convincing patent-averse Big Tech leaders that ‘royalty-free’ claims around VP9 and AV1 were untenable?

I thought about that continuously. Personally, I think that my biggest success was helping to change perceptions on that front. The case that we set out to make was that VP9 and AV1 were simply variations on a common architecture that had been developed over more than 30 years. There was initially a lot of resistance to that proposition.

It was a long-term process that entailed several years of back-and-forth conversations, some of which started out very tough. In the end, we persuaded many companies to understand our point of view from a technical perspective, and ultimately to acquire a license.

Now that we are close to the launch of AV2, I have been following some of the presentations made by the companies involved in AOM and hear engineers and executives say things like, “The framework has not changed much in the last 35 years.” This is a big shift, and I think it’s because we managed to explain this very well over many years of discussions with the top experts in the field.

You were appointed Sisvel CTO earlier this year. What does the role entail and what are your top priorities for the next year or so?

First of all, we would like Sisvel Tech to return a bit to its roots in R&D. Research collaborations and partnerships will be central to this. We will have to pick and choose the technological fields that we want to be active in, as well as who we will work with. Leading that process will be a key part of my role.

Some of the priorities in this area are natural extensions of the programmes that we are now operating quite successfully. For example, we should probably try to play a more active role in IEEE, which develops Wi-Fi standards. As our Wi-Fi Multimode programme continues to develop, we need to know the path that future generations of Wi-Fi are taking from the very beginning. Similarly, we want to be very engaged in digital multimedia – this is a field that Sisvel has been leading in for years and that capitalises on our existing technical strengths.

Then there is another set of opportunities that will arise outside of our current technical focus areas. Where we feel there is a good opportunity for a licensing programme, we need to study the relevant technologies and, if necessary, bring in the right technical experts to lead in these areas.

I would imagine that AI is something that you are spending a lot of time on?

Absolutely – the second big group of priorities is around AI. I am working closely with others at Sisvel both on creating licensing programmes related to AI and on the other side, understanding how AI tools will impact the way we work, particularly within Sisvel Tech.

There is no question that AI will be highly relevant to the work that Sisvel Tech has traditionally done on reading patents and deciding whether they belong in a pool. Increasingly, this will shift to providing input to some sort of AI tool and then validating the results. That will create a lot of work for Sisvel Tech because we are sceptical, because AI systems are not that stable and because any AI work product that we share with colleagues, customers, business development and licensing teams will require a lot of interpretation and unpacking. This is something that has to be deeply socialised, so that is another focus.

Given these big changes, how do you see Sisvel and the patent pool model developing over the medium term?

This is related to the third major area that I am focusing on, which is thinking about the big general trends in technology and figuring out how to futureproof the Sisvel business, including through diversification.

One potential area of interest is non-SEPs. One of our few past attempts in this area was the Recommendation Engine programme that I worked on – a very difficult and complex endeavour which produced some interesting lessons.

We are also always thinking about new business models and new ways to power innovation beyond pools; and again, all of those opportunities need to be considered in light of where technology markets are heading.

What kinds of collaborations has Sisvel lined up on the R&D side and what does it bring to the table when partnering with a university or research institute?

We are currently establishing a collaboration with a department of the Polytechnic University of Turin that is working on renewable energy and all of the technologies that go along with that. It’s an area in which we have seen considerable interest from industry in licensing solutions, and this connection with companies in the market is a key benefit that we bring to the table in these partnerships.

Where I think Sisvel has been really successful is in forging relationships with the companies that are developing technologies on the ground and understanding what the market opportunity is. If you do not do that and you deal with technologies in abstraction, you end up with something like DVB-H. No matter how much hype and publicity there may be around certain technologies, you need to talk to and work with people who are developing and implementing them, because it is only from their point of view that you can really understand whether there is a viable business model around a specific technology.

Quickfire questions…

What’s a typical weekend activity for you?

Depending on the season, any sport that is mountain related: climbing, skiing, hiking.

What should someone with a free day in Turin make sure they see, eat and do?

Museo Egizio and Mole Antonelliana, aperitivo and tramezzini at Mulassano and walking along via Po.

Where is your favourite holiday destination?

We love travelling (it’s a family thing), thus it’s just a matter of finding a compromise... recently a lot of Northern Europe but also Africa.

What’s the most memorable live performance you’ve witnessed?

Miles Davis at Palasport - Torino, Riccardo Muti conducting Beethoven with the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala - Torino, The Cure at Palasport – Torino, La Mano Negra at El Paso – Torino, Laurel Aitken (the Godfather of Ska) at Askatasuna, Torino

What’s your favourite TV series?

I can’t stand TV series. Just one exception: Adolescence (but that was a movie in four parts, not a series).

What’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve received?

No real advice, a lot of good criticisms. You learn a lot from them, especially when they come from someone you trust.