[whatwg] Codecs (was Re: Apple Proposal for Timed Media Elements)

[Gareth Hay]

As i said in a previous post, this is a very grey area.[1][2]

So much so that many of the granted patents are being opposed, and  
until the outcome of these oppositions, neither one of us can comment  
on the true legality of them.

I would suggest backing away from any such areas where software  
patentability becomes an issue. Case law hasn't sufficiently  
established the legality in my country, europe and many, many  
territories.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents#In_Europe
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention#Inventive_step_tes 
t

On 23 Mar 2007, at 10:02, Christian F.K. Schaller wrote:

> It is an Urban Legend that there are no software patents in the EU.  
> True
> enough there is no 'EU' software patents, but a lot of member  
> states do
> have them. I suggest going the MPEG LA's webpage and looking at the
> patent lists they have there for MPEG4. You will notice that a lot of
> the patents are from EU countries.
>
> Christian
>
>
> On Fri, 2007-03-23 at 08:35 +0000, Gareth Hay wrote:
>> Not in the EU, no such thing as a software patent.
>>
>> On 23 Mar 2007, at 04:55, Ian Hickson wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007, Robert Sayre wrote:
>>>>
>>>> MPEG-4 is proprietary, because it is covered by patents.
>>>
>>> I hate to be the one to break this to you, but CSS is covered by
>>> patents,
>>> HTML is covered by patents, the DOM is covered by patents,
>>> JavaScript is
>>> covered by patents, and so forth. Proprietary technologies are
>>> those that
>>> are under the control of a single vendor. MPEG-4 is not proprietary.
>>>
>>> It's not available under royalty free licensing. But it is not
>>> under the
>>> control of a single vendor. That is the important difference, not
>>> whether
>>> the technology is patented or not.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )
>>> \._.,--....,'``.    fL
>>> http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _
>>> \  ;`._ ,.
>>> Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--
>>> (,_..'`-.;.'
> -- 
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