Hi folks, I was curious what's known about the patent situation with the DV format. Google turns up a number of press articles describing it as an "open standard with no associated licensing fees" but also, for example, US Patent number 5,691,81 which, while I've not done a careful comparison of the claims, sounds like it covers the block-rearrangement scheme that's the major innovation in the DV format. So which is it? Is there a fee- and royalty-free grant on the applicable patents? Do the published specs have anything to say on the matter? I thought I'd consult available wisdom before paying for the spec documents in hope of enlightenment. :) Cheers, -r --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-dev-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
> I was curious what's known about the patent > situation with the DV > format. Google turns up a number of press articlesIf there's money to be made from it someone will claim it after the fact. To be safe you should patent it yourself or as a group. <p><p>__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-dev-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
Roman Shaposhnick
2004-Feb-10 10:39 UTC
[theora-dev] Re: [libdv-dev] DV format patent status
On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 10:02:51AM -0800, Ralph Giles wrote:> Hi folks, > > I was curious what's known about the patent situation with the DV > format. Google turns up a number of press articles describing it as an > "open standard with no associated licensing fees" but also, for example, > US Patent number 5,691,81 which, while I've not done a careful > comparison of the claims, sounds like it covers the block-rearrangement > scheme that's the major innovation in the DV format. > > So which is it? Is there a fee- and royalty-free grant on the applicable > patents? Do the published specs have anything to say on the matter? I > thought I'd consult available wisdom before paying for the spec > documents in hope of enlightenment. :)SMPTE 314M doesn't say a word about any patents, which means that IEC spec is your only option to find the truth, but on the other hand something's telling me that it won't tell you anything about patents either. Thanks, Roman. --- >8 ---- List archives: http://www.xiph.org/archives/ Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/ To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'theora-dev-request@xiph.org' containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body. No subject is needed. Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.
On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 13:02, Ralph Giles wrote:> Hi folks, > > I was curious what's known about the patent situation with the DV > format. Google turns up a number of press articles describing it as an > "open standard with no associated licensing fees" but also, for example, > US Patent number 5,691,81 which, while I've not done a careful > comparison of the claims, sounds like it covers the block-rearrangement > scheme that's the major innovation in the DV format. > > So which is it? Is there a fee- and royalty-free grant on the applicable > patents? Do the published specs have anything to say on the matter? I > thought I'd consult available wisdom before paying for the spec > documents in hope of enlightenment. :)According to this EE Times article (see bottom paragraph) implementations do not require a license fee: http://www.eetimes.com/news/98/1020news/divio.html However, apparantly Divio has filed some patents on its DV technology: http://www.divio.com/news/pr_000508.html As a related side note, Bruce Perens speaks and writes frequently about software patents and uses IEEE 1394 and its Linux implementation as an example. Oh well, while not an ideal situation, it has not stopped me from accepting payment for services implementing solutions based upon DV and IEEE 1394 using libdv and Linux 1394. <p><p> -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 190 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://lists.xiph.org/pipermail/theora-dev/attachments/20040210/6ff52960/signature-0001.pgp