[Patents] regulation draft proposal: revision

[Francois PELLEGRINI pelegrin@labri.u-bordeaux.fr]

        Bonjour M. Endres,

> >        Another salient example is MP3 encoders, with for instance BladeEnc
> >       vs. Thomson Multimedia the villain, and all of the Ogg sequels...
 
> Could you explain the problem that you have with the MP3 licensing
> scheme. It is well
> documented to the world under     http://mp3licensing.com.
> 
> There you find some 65 companies that have acquired licenses already. Is 
> your point
> that some companies should get preferred treatment, like e.g. the Open 
> Source
> community?

        My first comment is that such patents are, from the current state
of the law, not legal. Since the patenting of computer programs (even
"as
such"  8^)   ) is illegal, I think that preventing other people from
developing
MP3 encoders ("as such") is illegal. The fact that 65 companies have
paid for
that is just that they fear lawsuits in the US where the chase is
already open,
that's all.
       There are some places where big guys say that they own things which
they
do not, and threaten people so that they pay for what should else be
free. Put the
word you want on it. This is not my conception of life.

        The second point is that there seems to be a legal threat on other
entities that develop competing encoding formats (such as Ogg Vorbis),
because
the holders of the MP3 patents could sue them on the grounds of the
technology
used to compress sound. I have seen a paper on this recently, but cannot
put
a hand back on it. Sorry.
        So the point is: can small companies still develop innovative software
when large ones hold patent portfolios that cover whole concepts ? Maybe
your
answer is different from mine...


                                                f.p.


-- 
François PELLEGRINI        +33.5.56.84.69.35      
pelegrin@labri.u-bordeaux.fr
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