If I’m interpreting this correctly, many MP4 patents are going to expire next year. 🎉
15 points
Someone re-parented a variation to prevent it being public domain until 2040.
So the variation cannot be used. That’s irrelevant for a file format. Some company could, for example, patent a more efficient encoding technique but the resulting file format is still public domain. So at worst an open source encoder would need to be slightly inefficient because it uses the traditional technique.
12 points
Okay, pay X amount of dollars to go say that in a few court cases, and hope you get a judge that understands.
That’s why it’s called Patent Trolling because it’s not official or legitimate.
1 point
