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Firm quietly boosts H.264 streaming license fees from $100,000 up to staggering $4.5 million — backbone codec of the internet gets meteoric increase, AVC hikes follow disastrous H.265 licensing increa (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 47 points 7 months ago (3 children)

H.264 came out in 2003. Shouldn't the patents associated with it have expired by now? 23 years is more than 20 years from the filing date or else the codec's release itself is prior art. The 17 years from issuance rule ended in 1995. I don't think they can have any Lemelson style submarine patents that are still valid.

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  • [–] 12 points 7 months ago*

    Well, we're barely in the era where people can safely say "MPEG-1 is definitely out of patents and we're pretty damn confident Layer III (MP3) is too". Patents expire on the day they'll be set to expire, but unfortunately, patent lawyers hired by big companies don't expire that easily.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Not sure if sarcasm.

    Patents and copyrights for things wealthy people control last the better part of a century, if they ever expire. It is only us plebs that are bound by the intent of those silly patent and copyright laws.

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago

    Copyright works like you said, because of Disney mostly. Patents last max 20 years from filing, by law. Unless the US patent law is a total shitshow compared to the rest of the world.

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