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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GIFs into an entirely new medium that had little need for backward compatibility. In 1995, Unisys finally published a royalty sheet, exempting "non-commercial" software. By now most folks had forotton the controversy. In 1999, Unisys finally realized the web had become commercialized and got around to agressively enforcing their patent. In my view, the main 'controversy' about this whole thing is that (A) The GIF format wasn't replaced forthright back in 1990, and (B) The avalanche of new online users from 1995-1999 were not made aware of the patent issues surrounding GIF. Thus
are licensed. The GIF format becomes even more popular. The GIF format becomes even more popular. The GIF format becomes even more popular. The GIF format becomes even more popular. The GIF format becomes even more popular. So the US patent has expired. covers Germany, France, Britain and Italy and expires on the 18th June 2004. expires on the 6th June 2004. This creates an interesting legal situation where LZW-based sofware is legal to distribute in the United States, but risks patent infringement claims in or when exported to Europe, Canada and Japan. hasn't diminished GIF's popularity
GIFs into an entirely new medium that had little need for backward compatibility. In 1995, Unisys finally published a royalty sheet, exempting "non-commercial" software. By now most folks had forotton the controversy. In 1999, Unisys finally realized the web had become commercialized and got around to agressively enforcing their patent. In my view, the main 'controversy' about this whole thing is that (A) The GIF format wasn't replaced forthright back in 1990, and (B) The avalanche of new online users from 1995-1999 were not made aware of the patent issues surrounding GIF. Thus
have to pry the GIFs from my cold, dead fingers. i always found it amusing that the other side used gifs instead of pngs despite bleating about how bad patents were. 06/19/2003 05:18:36 AM EST (>4. 06/19/2003 06:01:53 AM EST (>4. 06/19/2003 01:21:30 PM EST (>5. 06/19/2003 05:05:53 PM EST (>3. 06/19/2003 05:59:40 AM EST (>3. 06/19/2003 06:38:05 PM EST (>3. 06/19/2003 01:38:09 PM EST (>2. invented new compression techniques>, had them stolen by patent, and gave up the field. 06/19/2003 08:43:12 AM EST (>3. 06/19/2003 10:23:18 AM EST (>3. I've been storing all my kiddie porn as gifs,
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)
and method", it is more commonly known as the LZW patent or Unisys's GIF tax. Don't buy ram at Apple. You can save big money when you buy your memory at MacMemoryStore. Most popular compression techniques build on this technique and most archivers (e. ZIP, ZOO, ARC, gzip, LhA, CAB, Arj, RAR, StuffIt) include it in their compression methods. I only mention this to tell you it's unrelated to LZ78 or LZW. [US4,464,650]>), but the LZW derivative is widely used. Terry Welch has been working for the Sperry Research Center and invents a derivative of LZ78 with much simplified, faster dictionary
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