[theora-dev] Re: [libdv-dev] DV format patent status

[Dan Dennedy]

On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 13:02, Ralph Giles wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I was curious what's known about the patent situation with the DV 
> format. Google turns up a number of press articles describing it as an 
> "open standard with no associated licensing fees" but also, for example, 
> US Patent number 5,691,81 which, while I've not done a careful 
> comparison of the claims, sounds like it covers the block-rearrangement 
> scheme that's the major innovation in the DV format.
> 
> So which is it? Is there a fee- and royalty-free grant on the applicable 
> patents? Do the published specs have anything to say on the matter? I 
> thought I'd consult available wisdom before paying for the spec 
> documents in hope of enlightenment. :)

According to this EE Times article (see bottom paragraph)
implementations do not require a license fee:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/98/1020news/divio.html

However, apparantly Divio has filed some patents on its DV technology:
http://www.divio.com/news/pr_000508.html

As a related side note, Bruce Perens speaks and writes frequently about
software patents and uses IEEE 1394 and its Linux implementation as an
example.

Oh well, while not an ideal situation, it has not stopped me from
accepting payment for services implementing solutions based upon DV and
IEEE 1394 using libdv and Linux 1394.

<p><p>
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