The next frontier in IP parasites: codec royalties on content
rocknerd.co.uk
rocknerd.co.uk
H264 didn't exist in 2001. At the time DivX was really a hacked Microsofts codec to allow encodes outside of .ASF files. This MS codec was a decent codec using standard Mpeg4 part 2 Simple Profile.
XviD was opensource effort to ditch ms hacked codec, and eventually it went to support other profiles, like ASP (advanced simple profile).
Much later some enterprising people figured that they could ride on the DivX name popularity. So they wrote own mpeg4 part2 codec and called themselves DivX LLC. Even much later this company also released h264 and h265 codecs. Hence maybe the confusion by the article author on what was used in 2001.
People keep mixing up H.264 and MPEG-4 being the same thing ( As they did in another HN thread ). Divx in 2001 was using MPEG-4 Part 2 or better known as H.263. Divx also has its H.264 profile that came much later.
Anyway I am very pissed that Nokia could be allowed to do that to AVC.
And then there is next bit;
>The patent trolls were the people claiming that MP3 was “dead” in 2017 — when in fact it was finally freed, because the last patents on it had expired. MP3 is sorta mediocre, but it’s also a common baseline everyone knows how to handle. And, y’know, it’ll do.
The common baseline should be AAC-LC. It is also patent free as MP3, still being used in iTunes. You get much better quality while having practically same hardware and software support.
The only safe video codec are those 30 years old codec where all patents has expired.
So yes, we should abolish software patents. But we do need a replacement or it'll incur a massive power shift from employees to companies.
On the contrary, your invention is more likely to be blocked because of a BS software patent such as the 1-click patent.
I get your argument for non employed individuals.
But employees basically never retain their rights to the code they’ve written while employed.
But an individual inventor (not an employee) is in a different situation.
The risk isn't just "we want 10 cents per consumption unit", it's that they have the ability to say "we won't license it for manufacturer ABC or purpose XYZ", and then they can change from being a tollbooth to progress to an actual roafblock.
There should be an easy way to blow the whistle-- invite a state mediator who can say "We've calculated a reasonable value of the patent as $x.y million, take an industry-wide collection and come up with that, and the patent is voided."
The patent system is (supposed to be) a trade: you tell everyone how to do something you invented, and in return your are granted a monopoly on exploiting it for a while (whether by using or selling it yourself, or by licensing same to others), after which anyone can use it.
The alternative is trade secrets: you don’t tell anyone how to do it, so no one else can do it. And this works just fine with software.