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

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

#131

Post by cung »

SoMomentary wrote: post #130
Symmetry wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’d argue it’s a superior mouse even with the drift, even though I agree that the drift is annoying and am amazed they have not been able to fix it all these years.

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

#132

Post by ornornor »

SoMomentary wrote: post #130
Symmetry wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no good Lenovo hardware anymore. It’s been completely swallowed by the Chinese company that bought it, and even the formerly “noble”/enterprise lines are junk now. Same as HP.

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

#133

Post by fluoridation »

account42 wrote: post #79
fluoridation wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the biggest problem has been granting patents for inventions that at least in retrospect seem non-novel or obvious. I don't agree that that's the biggest problem. I think the biggest problem is that patents are abused to stifle competition by refusing licenses or putting untenable fees on them. No one would have cared about Nintendo's D-pad patent if they'd just put a reasonable license fee on it. On the other hand,…

It would be better to allow codec patents only on the encoder. Once you have encoded data, there is only one valid way to decode it so everyone should be able to implement that. That is, the general decoding mechanism at least - you could still have novel implementation details.

Eh. It would be better, yes. I still think it would suck.

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

#134

Post by robertlagrant »

daneel_w wrote: post #97
BarryGuff wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember DivX fondly Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in a long time. Yes, DivX was the sh*t back in the day. So good!

With emphasis on shit . Really. I can relate to the rose-tinted memories, but DivX and XviD both encode to MPEG-4 ASP which has a lot of shortcomings that manifestly result in the infamous sludgy green-purple banding artefacts of the time, no matter how good the chosen encoder is. XviD is the better of those two MPEG-4 ASP encoders, but it simply does not look good in an absolute sense, just in a relative sense compa…

It was amazing being able to fit a full length movie on a CD-ROM though.

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

#135

Post by shevy-java »

> Getting media to work on Linux is more complex than you may think.

Not at all: ffmpeg + mpv

Problem solved.

> a lot less feasible for Linux distributions designed to be freely downloaded and redistributed.

> [...] spent some time enabling third-party repositories to get multimedia codecs, you already know what it's like

Well, this was quite easy on debian, but I abandoned being a slave to distributions. I compile from source as-is, using a set of ruby scripts (primarily), not unlike homebrew, but based on YAML rather than ruby classes 1:1 (this YAML dataset is expanded into variables that fully describe how a program is installed, what it installs, and so forth, so any other programming language can also evaluate the same dataset here; I just wrote the first implementation via ruby as such, but I can add support for other languages easily, or someone else can, it is open by design).

What the article describes really is, at worst, a problem for some distribution. But even there it was never any problem to have support for multimedia, unless the distribution sucks. Many distributions suck, but many other distributions are also excellent. Arch is IMO much better than debian, by default. In fact, both debian and the rpm-based distributions, are usually quite retarded by default. Arch, Gentoo and many more, even oldschool slackware, are much saner by default. I have no idea why retarded distributions became so dominant, probably because they were very easy to get going (see ubuntu). But quite frankly, the article really blows this all out of proportion. Enabling support for codecs is easy, even on most of the retarded distributions.

I don't see video patent being a problem though really. The real test step for linux will be the upcoming mandatory age sniffing. People already looked with deep worry at systemd running ahead and supporting age sniffing (see https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954). Now the legislation is slowly changing to force everyone to give up their age. Microsoft will push next here, via Windows. You heard this here first.

Age sniffing will come - the lobbyists were all already paid to force this. The big commercial distributions will go force and ID its users.

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

#136

Post by technothrasher »

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…

You are talking about the Paris Convention. The parent poster was talking about the Patent Law Treaty. The Paris Convention made it easier to file in other member countries after filing in your home country, but you still have to file in each country you wish to be covered in. The much newer Patent Law Treaty allows for "international" patents, which only need to be filed once to be applicable in all member countries.

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

#137

Post by vincnetas »

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?!?

now we have one click buy with apple pay basically

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

#138

Post by nnevatie »

daneel_w wrote: post #99
nnevatie wrote: post #87

> MPEG-4 Part 2 Yes, if you care about the DVD-era still. If not, this expiry doesn't have a big impact on anything.

DVD Video uses the much older MPEG-2 standard, not MPEG-4.

Apologies - it seems my morning-brain backfired. We’re talking about h.263-era, instead (DivX, Xvid, etc.).

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

#139

Post by leptons »

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.

"Add to upcoming delivery" is a one-click purchase.

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

#140

Post by philipallstar »

Hugsbox wrote: post #91
benj111 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't comprehend your point of view here It isn't their pov. 90% of computing patents are basically 'X on a computer' Eg the Amazon 1 click buy patent

Sure, things within the discipline of computing can be patented, but imagine if somebody just patented the entire discipline of computing . Somehow 1 click buy doesn't quite feel like it's in the same category as humanity conquering the skies.

They didn't patent the equivalent, the entire discipline of flying. They patented "angular relations of the lateral margins of the aeroplanes may be varied in opposite directions with respect to the normal planes of said aeroplanes"
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