About H,264 Patents and License Issues.

[iwod]

If u have a server inside a country where there are no such thing as software patents, could you offer free x264 encoding services?

And also could i serve H,264 files on the web for free without a license.

[CruNcher]

i would say nope but im not a lawyer in any way definitely with Acta it wont be possible if the Country agreed to the agreement :)
Though yes you are allowed to serve free content as the royality free period for distribution has been extended to the end of the patents which should be somewhere 2028 http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en
Though this part "Products and services other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be royalty-bearing." Would normally suggest that only Internet Broadcast (so streaming services with free content are free )
So better read the exact Mpeg-LA license carefully ;)

[TheFluff]

Unlike copyright, a patent is only enforceable in the country it was issued in, so if something isn't patented in your country you are free to do whatever you want with it. Since internet sites are available worldwide, however, the patent holder may attempt to sue you in their own country, which may or may not lead somewhere depending on a number of factors. Under most circumstances a civil suit in a foreign country is completely harmless to you, but take care if you're in the EU because civil suits in another EU member country may (or may not) be applicable to you.

Note that IANAL.

[CruNcher]

yep exactly they gonna sue you either immediately or they are clever and wait (waiting is more popular) ;)

[Ghitulescu]

Unlike copyright, a patent is only enforceable in the country it was issued in, so if something isn't patented in your country you are free to do whatever you want with it.

Side note: The copyright is the same. :) People get probably this idea since most countries have signed the Bern Convention some "centuries" ago, which situation is not yet applicable to patents.

[TheFluff]

Side note: The copyright is the same. :) People get probably this idea since most countries have signed the Bern Convention some "centuries" ago, which situation is not yet applicable to patents.

what

you pretty much just said "copyright is not enforceable outside of the country the work originated in, except pretty much all significant countries have implemented the berne convention rules, so it is enforceable outside the country the work originated in after all", which is a completely meaningless statement

I mean, in some theoretical world where no such thing as the berne convention existed, you'd be right and copyrights would not be enforceable in a foreign country, but as copyright law in pretty much every significant country is right now, the fact is that there is no difference between foreign and domestic copyright, so I really don't understand what you're trying to say at all.

[Ghitulescu]

No, I said that you generalised a little bit too much. I said that your statement is right only to those countries I mentioned. Only because this convention was signed long time ago by most countries (notable exception US, which signed it much recently) makes you be right.
Unfortunately, even this be said, it's difficult to "port" some features of one country's low to another's. Fair use in the sense the Amis know it is fully irrelevant in France, to give an example. Acts considered cavaliers delicts (unpunishable) in France may bring one in a fed prison for 5 years if one takes the FBI warning seriously. because the law must also be enforced, not only issued.

On the other hands, the patents are handled more or less similarly in almost all countries, just that some (EU ones) don't recognize pure software patents. However several dozens thousands so-called software patents have been granted in EU, which may pose problems.

The only grey zone I see is to set a server in that country (let's assume for the sake of argumentation that this country is Papua for that Papua did not signed the convention yet) and to restrict the access to it based on IP addresses of that country (addresses, of course, provided by servers residing in that country).