No format is patent-free

[temporance]

Much as I love the work done by Ogg developers and others, and much as I hate the patent system, there is something I want to share:

MCF, Ogg and almost any other A/V format are not patent free, despite what anyone might say.

For example, there is a patent covering interleaving of video and audio chunks in a file. So, in principle, everyone needs to license this patent before they can use MCF. Likewise, I have audio-expert friends who are aware of patents that Ogg Vorbis infringes.

There are just so many patents out there that almost everything you could devise today has been thought of and patented before.

So, is there any point using these formats if they could be made subject to license or royalty fees just like mp3 and ac3????? Why not just use the best format for the job???

[robUx4]

Could you give more details on these patents ?

[temporance]

It would take me a long time to find them all. Best thing is to go to somewhere like delphion.com and start searching if you want the gruesome details :)

[Koepi]

You are so smart!

Of course all the lawyers over at xiph.org (vorbis, ogg) are dumb and don't know nothing!

I'm pretty sure you are on the right side as your friends tell you something.

I hope they never tell you to jump out of the window....

[temporance]

Did I forget to say that my friends are experts in this area?

I really don't want to be inflamatory here but it worries me when people build a new technology and then assume that it is not covered by a single patent.

Ogg do seem to be pretty clued up about this, but...

No one has the time to go through the thousands of patents in audio and video coding. Some of them are in Japanese! It is likely that the first we hear of them is when someone starts making serious money from one of these technologies -- then the maggots crawl out of the apple.

[ChristianHJW]

MCF is L-GPL. It was never ment to earn money and never will. We thought about founding a company, but only to be able to make a good trademarking.

The point i see with all these patents is, that most of them were done to ensure companies holding them can continue doing what they were planning to do ... not by sueing others using the same or similar technologies. So very likely nobody will invest the time to read and understand the MCF specs, checking if its violating any patents.

But thanks for the hint. We will discuss the issue, just in case ...