Has anyone mentioned a patent number?

Posted Sep 5, 2006 16:36 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625)
In reply to: Has anyone mentioned a patent number? by edmundo
Parent article: SanDisk faces MP3 licence dispute (BBC)

mp3licensing.com has a list of patents as well as a price list. A decode-only license for MP3 costs US$0.75 per unit.

Total cost of the parts in an iPod Nano one year ago: $90.

Yes, the parts prices are coming down and the MP3 license is not, but does using an unlicensed MP3 implementation really save them that much?

Has anyone mentioned a patent number?

Posted Sep 5, 2006 18:43 UTC (Tue) by shalem (subscriber, #4062) [Link] (1 responses)

Maybe they are a good company and are not paying the license out of principle?

Has anyone mentioned a patent number?

Posted Sep 5, 2006 23:22 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link]

I don't think willful infringement is the kind of thing good companies do. Lobbying and pushing for change in the laws would be great, but willful infringement just makes the legal penalites higher. As long as the laws are there, you're pretty much stuck with complying with the law or risking bankruptcy-grade penalties.