Software patents and encumbered formats

Software patents and encumbered formats

As I understand it, Nokia, and others, are worried that Ogg might not really be free. Yes, as far as we know there are no patents to be infringed, but Microsoft recently got burned for a lot of money over MP3 patents, even though it had paid up in full to the MP3 patent consortium. This is because Alcatel figured out that they had two applicable patents that weren't part of the pool, years afterward.

The fear is that someone is sitting out there waiting for a big player to get behind Ogg, and then to whip out some ancient, unnoticed patent and demand hundreds of millions. It's difficult to prove that no such patent exists.

I don't know if there is any way to address these fears. I think that the Ogg folks can assure people that nothing on the big MP3 patent list is infringed by Ogg, because it was carefully designed to be different. But the worry is that some other patent is out there lurking, perhaps a submarine patent that had already been filed when Ogg was designed.

I can't be certain if this is Nokia's real issue. If it is, perhaps there is some way to address it.

Obviously, one way to address the problem is to get rid of software patents, or at least not
actively try to make the situation worse as Nokia has done.

Yes, it is hard to be sure there is no lurking patent that covers Ogg.  The same is true for
MP3 and any other format.  The only consolation you have with MP3 is the thought that if
somebody had a patent they probably would have asserted it by now.  But then that's surely
what Microsoft thought.

"copyright and patent"

and contract law.