[Ffmpeg-devel] Snow?

[Rich Felker]

On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 06:57:24PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> Hi
> 
> On Wednesday 11 May 2005 18:10, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 05:32:42PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > > if you want a certainly patent free codec you have no choice except using
> > > one which is older then the expiration timespan for patents
> >
> > No, that won't help.  People just go out and file patents on old
> > technologies again.  Given the abysmal quality of sw patents and the
> > checks done in the patent offices this works...
> 
> yes i know, but such cases are IMHO/IANAL not the problem, they are too 
> obviously invalid
> i mean if someone sues because program X infriges patent Y, but X is older 
> then any patent could be (that implicates older then the actual patent used 
> here) then i somehow doubt that would work, no doubt it could be used for 
> threatening and draging inocent people into lawsuits but you dont need 
> patants for that, just look at SCO they do this with copyright
> 
> such draging into lawsuits could IMHO/IANAL only be stoped by penalties 
> against the _person_ behind, so the CEO would personally go to jail after the 
> courts agree that the case was based on lies instead of some financial 
> penalty against the company which the CEO just leaves as it goes down

Why stop at the CEO? Let's make it all the employees, all the board
members, and all the stock holders. Then people would think twice
about working for or investing in criminal companies..

Rich