I wrote a similar article in Arabic.
yes, because MP3 is now similar to public domain it does not mean it's dead. only the business of patent trolls behind it is dead.
yes, because MP3 is now similar to public domain it does not mean it's dead. only the business of patent trolls behind it is dead.
I just read your blog post through Google Translate. You seem to claim that they patented the use of Fourier transform for storage of music. This is not what happened at all. The patent was granted for specifying which part of the Fourier transform can safely be discarded for storage (and reconstructed while playback) without harming the sound you hear too much. That's not something they just looked up in a 200-year-old book but took more than a decade of complex research. The result of this research is their actual product and it's a highly valuable one.
According to the case of Bilski, patents should involve a machine, otherwise it's invalid. But trolls don't care of their patents are invalid, because of how patent cases are handled in courts
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20081102011538...
Fraunhofer would not have developed audio compression if they couldn't earn money with it (they are a non-profit by the way and the money earned funds new research). That's their business model. They have novel ideas, do hard work to make them possible, and sell that to companies. Are you suggesting people shouldn't get paid to do their work?
Algorithms are the machines of the 21st century.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070927224154/ffmpeg.mplayerhq.h...
It's the unfortunate effect that the German research organisation that developed it only finances all their research with patents.