Nov 24th 2007 by http://dionpills. GIF patent dead at 20 || kuro5hin. I just heard some sad news on talk radio - GIF patent US4,558,302 was found expired in its patent office filing cabinet this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the internet community will miss it - even if you didn't enjoy the litigation, there's no denying its contribution to bandwidth conservation. for 20 years, the contents of the patent are entered into the Public Domain and may be used absolutely freely by anyone. Officially titled "High speed data compression and decompression apparatus
Center) and the Burroughs Corporation merge to form Unisys. 15th June 1987>: Bob Berry and the team at Compuserve release a new graphics file format called GIF (Graphics Interchange Format). It can handle anything from 2 to 256 colours -- wow! -- and the graphics data is compressed with LZW. Just like Spencer, they had read the LZW algorithm in a magazine and had wrongly assumed that it wasn't patented. The GIF format becomes even more popular. tries to bring up the issue in public. Unisys have been ensuring hardware manufacturers (e. modem manufacturers and Postscript printer manufacturers)
large numbers of people built GIF support into their software and websites without knowledge that they were on thin ice. Now, I suppose Unisys could have done a better job educating people, but the rules of patents state that's not their job. If anything, the real outrage should be at the online world's mostly indifferent attitude towards the GIF problem. 20 June 2003 should have passed without note. True up to a point. 06/20/2003 11:03:41 AM EST (>4. 06/21/2003 07:09:17 PM EST (>1. The RIAA's logo on their homepage is a gif. I wonder if they are paying to use it- yeah, right. Too bad
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for Unisys to try to extend the patent. I mean hell, if the copyright to Mickey Mouse can be extended then there's no way they'd let a patent quietly die. 06/19/2003 05:22:31 PM EST (>3. 06/19/2003 07:06:21 PM EST (>1. 06/19/2003 10:03:41 PM EST (>4. This one's for you, ICI. Your vote (1) was recorded. This story currently has a total score of 95. Your vote put this story over the threshold, and it should now appear on the front page. 06/19/2003 11:34:37 AM EST (>5. 06/20/2003 02:36:58 AM EST (>4. 06/20/2003 10:43:11 AM EST (>5. 06/20/2003 10:48:41 AM EST (>3. 06/20/2003 11:08:35
in the slightest. What happened to the "BURN ALL GIFS" rallying cry? It has been forgotten. There are all sorts of excuses; "It's too much hassle to convert all my graphics and their links", "Internet Explorer doesn't support PNG properly", "PNGs can't do animation and nobody supports MNGs". The best one of all: "Unisys will never sue me!". I wish Unisys a happy year squeezing the very last drops out of their monopoly. or "Why He Stopped Writing Compression Software". You must accept a cookie to log in. I don't have a website. I have some, but I'm changing them all to PNGs. Unisys will
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