[MEncoder-users] Free of patents codec

[Michael Niedermayer]

Hi

On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 12:44:10PM -0400, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 03:49:22PM +0100, Raphael wrote:
> > Rich Felker wrote:
> > 
> > >On Sun, Aug 21, 2005 at 02:26:24AM -0700, Antonio wrote:
> > > 
> > >
> > >>Dirac and Snow I think are free of patents codecs also.
> > >>   
> > >>
> > >
> > >Nonsense. Nothing is free of patents, not even a basic for loop...
> > >
> > >Rich
> > > 
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > Do you have the US patent number for that?
> 
> Ask Michael. ;)

cat /dev/random ;)
but seriously, if a simple generic loop is patented and i wouldnt be
terribly suprised if it is then such a patent would be invalid and wouldnt
survive court assuming of course the one who is sued survives financially

btw, maybe interresting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/documentation/faq.htm
----
Do the BBC have patents in Dirac? Yes. We have patent applications in train
for some of the techniques involved in Dirac, and others that we intend to 
put into Dirac in the future. There has been some FUD about this, so we'll 
be clear: this does not affect the Open Source status of Dirac, nor does it
affect its royalty-free status. The conditions of the MPL mean that we're 
licensing these patents for use within the Dirac software for free. 

Do you infringe any patents? The short answer is that we don't know for
certain. We haven't employed armies of lawyers to trawl through the tens
of thousands of video compression techniques. That's not the way to
invent a successful algorithm. Instead we've tried to use techniques of 
long standing in novel ways. Where we think we're novel, we're in the 
process of getting patent protection ourselves, which will invalidate 
others' claims of priority. There are some areas that are more heavily 
patented than others. Arithmetic coding is one such, even though the 
technique itself has been around for 25 years. We're keeping an eye on 
the situation, and we'll adopt alternative techniques if we have to. 
----

about theora, well lets try wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora
----
While VP3 is patented technology, On2 has irrevocably given royalty-free
license of the VP3 patents to all of humanity, enabling the public to
utilize Theora and other VP3-derived codecs for any imaginable purpose.
----
and yes vp3 == theora

[...]
-- 
Michael