Comments on: After JPEG, Now Patent Threat to MPEG-4

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 07:47:55 +0000

Open source doesn’t means patent free.

Open source means that you won’t have to implement the algorithm. But to use it legally, you will have to pay licensing fees to all patent holders. This is true for both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 (and Jpeg2000).

By: Jayant B.Rangari

Jayant B.Rangari — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 07:13:23 +0000

MPEG4 codecs is an open source, why make it proprietary, as is MPEG2.

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:20:20 +0000

My point with proprietary formats was that this way “the format owner is the one who has to take care of the such liabilities”. But ofcourse, its wont be the end of woes.

I personally am not against patents in general, but such actions are definitely questionable. Yes, laws need to be fixed, I am not sure how.

And its not just software, this economy is everywhere. Electronic gaints have made this their major revenue source.

By: Maurice Pelletier

Maurice Pelletier — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:42:22 +0000

Proprietary formats provide no gaurantee that they are not infriging on someone else patent. Visto sueing Microsoft over WMV patent infringement, for instance. The whole sueing thing in the software realm has become a whole economy of it’s own. These laws need to be fixed, just writing down an idea on a piece of paper shouldn’t be enough. There should be a working real product before these claims can be made.

By: Gene

Gene — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 20:53:15 +0000

I wonder which patents AT&T is referring to…and if those patents are also “questionable”.

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 16:30:09 +0000

I thought Feb 7th and 9th came after Feb 2nd :-)

Atleast those are the dates mentioned on Forgent’s annoucements. I think you meant to say that the actual deals were signed much earlier.

I hope we don’t see any more such announcements from Forgent.

By: R West

R West — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 15:28:38 +0000

The two recent licensees agreements were dated before the USPTO reexamination decision.