On 20/05/10 16:28, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Codec patents are, in general, excruciatingly specific — it makes passing the examination much easier and doesn't at all reduce the patent's ability to cover the intended format because the format mandates the exact behaviour.
I always assumed there would be patents on the software processes for encoding and decoding. It seems to me that you could patent novel parts of an encoder, even if the format is 20 years old. Then you could sue anyone who tried to build an encoder using similar techniques.
I would have trouble believing that all of the companies involved are too benevolent to try this.
-- Tim Starling