patents make GIF the most safe for use today

Posted Feb 11, 2011 22:03 UTC (Fri) by lotzmana (subscriber, #3052)
In reply to: MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec by xav
Parent article: MPEG LA Announces Call for Patents Essential to VP8 Video Codec

...nowadays nobody fears GIF lawsuits anymore.

The most safe standard today from point of view of patents is GIF. If you need to select a picture format and not fear any lawsuits choose GIF. It is protected by a patent that has expired. LZW compression and file format are forever patent free now.

patents make GIF the most safe for use today

Posted Feb 14, 2011 10:31 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (2 responses)

That doesn't mean that GIF is not infringing on other patents.

patents make GIF the most safe for use today

Posted Feb 14, 2011 16:31 UTC (Mon) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (1 responses)

Given that the GIF spec was first published in 1987, 24 years ago, the last of the patents that could have applied to GIF expired in a few years ago.

(Yeah, I know it's slightly more complicated than that, but the bottom line is that GIF is now as safe from unknown patents as any other bit of software could ever be)

patents make GIF the most safe for use today

Posted Feb 14, 2011 19:54 UTC (Mon) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

The common technique is to keep applying for more patents on a underlying technology that builds on the old patents as soon as the old ones are nearer to the expiry date therefore keeping it patent encumbered forever. For instance, a patent on rendering GIF images faster might be patent encumbered and that particular optimization might be in common use. GIF is unlikely to be of that much interest to pursue this path but other more high profile stuff like multimedia codecs are likely following this strategy.