[MPlayer-users] MPlayer patent issues NOVIRUS

[Reimar Döffinger]

Hi,
On Fri, Jun 10, 2005 at 03:36:44PM +0200, Guillaume POIRIER wrote:
> On 6/10/05, Richard.Petrie at trendcomms.com <Richard.Petrie at trendcomms.com> wrote:
> > can anyone clarify for me what the actual patent threat is that may prevent
> > MPlayer continuing. I know about the European software patent situation but
> > I do not understand why this threatens the existence of MPlayer. 
> 
> The way I understand it, pretty much all video processing techniques
> are patented (or if they are not, they will... or they may also not be
> be worth being patented).

Actually it doesn't matter if anything is patented, it is enough that
somebody could claim to have a patent, and clarifying this would
probably more costly than any of us really could afford.
That's why it is important for us that any new legislation would clearly
state that patents on software and algorithms are not possible (i.e. the
only protection for software just as for music, drawings etc. is the
copyright).
libdts is just one recent example of what can happen - it never gets to
the stage where someone actually checks if the claims are valid.
The current completely obfuscated proposal thus would provide zero
protection to us, no matter what the proponents claim you can patent with
it and what not, since the only place you can find that out is court.

Greetings,
Reimar Döffinger