Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

xda-developers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 186 posts

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#121

Post by jambalaya8 »

goodcanadian wrote: post #108
Certhas wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably it's an "international patent" filed in Brazil. You don't have to file your patent in every jurisdiction. There have been treaties for recognising each others intellectual property rights since the late 19th century and Brazil has been part of these from the start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internation...

So, I recently learned about this from my company's patent lawyers. Patents only give protection in countries where they are filed. So, you can not create a product in Brazil that violates a Brazilian patent. And, you cannot import a product into Brazil that violates that patent. But, there is nothing stopping you from making that product in the US and selling it to Americans. The whole treaty business essentially me…

By your company's patent lawyers' logic then, any American drug or technical doodad patented in America is totally legal to be knocked off in Majarashtra or Taiwan or Guangzhong. Pretty sure if you tried pulling this you would be disappointed with the outcome. Not that it is not done (obviously), but that it (pretty sure) isn't legal.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#122

Post by jakevoytko »

nemomarx wrote: post #96
Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

Back in 2017 - https://patents.google.com/patent/US5960411A/en Although I don't see a lot of other sites using it. You'd think Shopify would?

I worked at Etsy when it expired and the execs got this question a lot. The TL;DR is that the expected outcome is that it massively increases the support burden (wait I didn't mean to click that; wait I actually need to send it to another address; wait I didn't realize shipping was a hundred dollars) without really enabling more sales. So it was a neat idea and worth trying when ecommerce was new, but now we know enough about ecommerce to know that the user has to confirm details of their purchase.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#123

Post by polonbike »

manarth wrote: post #107
Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

> "Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?" Amazon doesn't use one-click any more. The closest it gets is "Buy now", which is two clicks from item page to purchase.

The fact that they don't use it has nothing to do with the availability of the patented process. I don't think Amazon will just say : "You guys can have it, we don't use it anyway"

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#124

Post by cestith »

miguelxpn wrote: post #112
FuturisticLover wrote: post #109

Siemens holding one of the key patents in video codecs surprises me. I am not technically savvy, but I thought telecom infrastructure or direct media companies would hold the most important patents on this.

If I'm not mistaken they had a telecom infrastructure division at one point.

Siemens started as a communications company. The first invention was a type of telegraph. Siemens had a division called Siemens Communications Systems. They split that into Siemens Communications Systems (public networks) and Siemens Information Systems (PBX systems and such) in the mid 1980s.

The company did a reorg in the late 1990s into four divisions. Those were rail, industrial, power generation, and information & communications systems. That was again called Siemens Communications Systems.

SCS was rebranded to Unify in 2013. Unify was sold to Atos in 2016. Mitel bought it from Atos around 2023. Unify is currently still a subsidiary of Mitel. Parts of the communications division had been split off and went through separate M&A activity previously.

The DCO and EWSD were notable digital central office phone switches. The EWSD ended up at Nokia through some M&A activity. The EWSD was commissioned into phone company offices right up until 2017. When I was in the dial-up ISP world and had dozens of contacts within phone companies, the joke backronym for it was Europe’s Worst Switching Device. It was actually pretty reliable if the software was kept up to date, but there are hilarious stories about early models and unpatched installations. I have one of those stories in personal memory.

Fun facts: EWSD was a joint project in some way with Bosch, ran an operating system, and was one of the major projects in the world that used the CHILL programming language.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#125

Post by cestith »

FuturisticLover wrote: post #109

Siemens holding one of the key patents in video codecs surprises me. I am not technically savvy, but I thought telecom infrastructure or direct media companies would hold the most important patents on this.

Siemens started as a telecom company.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#126

Post by voakbasda »

FuturisticLover wrote: post #109

Siemens holding one of the key patents in video codecs surprises me. I am not technically savvy, but I thought telecom infrastructure or direct media companies would hold the most important patents on this.

Siemens has acquired countless smaller businesses over the years, including some large ones (e.g. Mentor Graphics). It is entirely plausible to believe those purchases included IP such as this.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#127

Post by Symmetry »

Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

The patent making Lenovo's Trackpoints better than imitators (US5570111A) expired back in 2020 but everybody keeps making touchpad-only laptops. :/

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#128

Post by hgoel »

Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

MP3! I remember that one being frustrating prior to the patent's expiry.

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#129

Post by bragr »

Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

3D printing patents mostly expired circa 2010-2015 which is why we have affordable consumer 3D printers today

Re: A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

#130

Post by SoMomentary »

Symmetry wrote: post #127
Brendinooo wrote: post #95

What other tech patents did we somewhat resent being patented that are now expired? I'm also thinking about the click wheel; I got one of my kids a knockoff iPod for Christmas last year. Can other e-commerce sites legally "one-click" to purchase like Amazon now?!?

The patent making Lenovo's Trackpoints better than imitators (US5570111A) expired back in 2020 but everybody keeps making touchpad-only laptops. :/

I'm unfortunately really unimpressed with the Trackpoints coming out of Lenovo today. I have a brand new ThinkPad that suffers from drift everyday, so it's easy for me to see why other companies aren't including Trackpoints on their products.
Post reply on HN