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I listed four features and suggested that only two were available from each of the current codecs.

You are also free to use open source AVC implementations and ignore that MPEG-LA license too. Depending on who you are and what you are doing with AVC the probability of action by a patent holder could be very low.

I meant the patents under the MPEG-LA from the eleven companies (some of whom I would take seriously) and including at least two of the biggest Android manufacturers rather than Google's enemies:

CIF Licensing LLC

France Telecom

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.

Fujitsu Limited

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.

LG Electronics Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

MPEG LA, LLC

NTT DOCOMO, INC.

Panasonic Corporation

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Siemens Corporation

You are right that the patent list does not seem to be published which is unfortunate. If the patents in the AVC pool owned by these companies were checked against VP8 by someone credible and preferably independent it would give quite a good degree of assurance about them.

Do note though that Google claimed to have bought On2's patents and they too only seem to be offered under the same non-FOSS compatible licence as the MPEG-KA ones.

As for the Nokia patents I don't think that they would have been brought to courts if Nokia didn't think victory was a realistic outcome. However the drop out rate for claims is very high in all the patent disputes although it seems very hard to predict at the start what will stand up and what will fall so it is entirely possible that they will fail. From my perspective this seems a bad sign for the consistency and predictability of patent law which needs major reform rather than proof that Nokia is claiming rights that IT doesn't believe it has.



Patents related to VP8 which Google bought from On2 are freely licensed, see http://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/

The list of companies doesn't impress me. Many manufacturers are engaged in patent racket. It's Google refusal to play the same game that caused their ire and fear mongering. As I said, until they actually publish what's supposedly exists in that pool - there is no point to pay any attention to their claims.


Still not FOSS compatible as the patent grant is only for implementations of the specification. It is still a pretty generous grant without other caveats though.

The patent "racket" is the system enshrined in the current laws which I agree need fixing but our wishes for that to happen don't make it so and the patents won't disappear unless it does or until they expire.


As for the Nokia patents I don't think that they would have been brought to courts if Nokia didn't think victory was a realistic outcome.

It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft used another company's losing case (SCO) to fight a proxy battle.




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