[Flac-dev] A-law and mu-law

[Erik de Castro Lopo]

Giulio Paci wrote:

> These are good news.
> Do you know if there is any patent pending for ALAC and CAF?

I do not know of any pattent issues with either of these formats.

CAF is a very simple container format like WAV and AIFF. It does
not contain anything that could possibly be patented (ignoring how
many stupid patents have in fact been granted).

ALAC was recently released by Apple under the Apache license which
has a 3rd clause that states:

    Grant of Patent License. Subject to the terms and conditions
    of this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a
    perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free,
    irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license
    to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and
    otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only
    to those patent claims licensable by such Contributor that are
    necessarily infringed by their Contribution(s) alone or by
    combination of their Contribution(s) with the Work to which
    such Contribution(s) was submitted. If You institute patent
    litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or
    counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that the Work or a
    Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes direct
    or contributory patent infringement, then any patent licenses
    granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate
    as of the date such litigation is filed.

Which to me seems pretty safe.

Erik
-- 
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Erik de Castro Lopo
http://www.mega-nerd.com/