JPEG Ridiculous

ast3r3xast3r3x
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
http://p2pnet.net/story/1294



Why is everyone so sue happy these days? I thought there was something that if something is as widely used or public knowledge that it can't be considered owned? (worded poorly, but hopefully you know what I mean)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    jubelumjubelum Posts: 4,490member
    Well, they do own a patent on it. They developed it.



    I want to know how M$FT stayed off that list of defendants.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    homhom Posts: 1,098member
    The patent wasn't enforced for what 20 year? This case is not going anywhere.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    If two people share a property line. And one takes care of part of the others for years. If they go to court, the person who has taken care of it for those years will most likely win.



    ...or so I was told by a lawyer a couple years ago. I mowed for these people and the ex-lawyer asked me if I could not mow beside their fence because of that (he sited some case).
  • Reply 4 of 7
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    [in voice of big time radio anouncer]COMEING THIS SUMMER, DELETE THE PORNO, HACK THE DIGIAL CAMERA TO STORE IN .RAW, AND THE IMAGES HAD BETTER BE PULLED FROM YOUR WEB SITE, BECAUSE THEY ARE COMEING...THE LAWYERS, AND THE OBSCURE PATTENTS, IF YOU USE COMPUTERS, IT WILL SCARE THE HELL OUT OF YOU, IT IS BYTE WARS: RETURN OF THE CLOWNES, the much anticipated follow up to SCO WARS: THE M$ EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, this inpending feasco is rated FU (Frivolus and Unsubstantiated or F*ck the Users, you pick) look for it soon in a courtroom or newspaper near you

    [end announcer]
  • Reply 5 of 7
    oldmacfanoldmacfan Posts: 501member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Jubelum

    Well, they do own a patent on it. They developed it.



    I want to know how M$FT stayed off that list of defendants.



    I was aware they bought the patent in 1997, and it only covers a compression algorithm. They are trying to pull and SCO. The Patent runs out in 2006, and they are trying to cash in before then. Maybe GIF's will return to prominence now that that patent has expired.
  • Reply 6 of 7
    stroszekstroszek Posts: 801member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by oldmacfan

    Maybe GIF's will return to prominence now that that patent has expired.



    Or PNG, possibly?
    Quote:

    From http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/

    PNG is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images. PNG provides a patent-free replacement for GIF and can also replace many common uses of TIFF. Indexed-color, grayscale, and truecolor images are supported, plus an optional alpha channel for transparency. Sample depths range from 1 to 16 bits per component (up to 48bit images for RGB, or 64bit for RGBA).



    But then again IE6/Win doesn't display them correctly.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    the cool gutthe cool gut Posts: 1,714member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by HOM

    The patent wasn't enforced for what 20 year? This case is not going anywhere.



    As far as I know, this isn't a trademark issue, so it's not something that has to be continuously enforced to remain valid.



    As well, companies like Adobe have been paying them royalty fees, so it's not something that they just decided to start charging for.
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