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I think you are correct: ANS is an entropy coding method, so a patent shouldn't be able to claim a new use for encoding some specific type of information [1]. Also, Duda's paper even exemplifies the obvious use case for video compression [2].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obvious...

[2] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.2540

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Unfortunately, that's not the case, at least as the patent office currently sees things. There's thousands of patents for H.264 and HEVC that amount to "code a certain bitstream symbol with CABAC this certain way".

If that's the case, that's a terrible perversion of the intended purpose of patents. The progress of science and the useful arts would probably be better served by putting the entire patent system on hiatus for a few decades.

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