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GIF Patent Prepares to Expire
pajamacore writes "It's worth noting that 20 June 2003 is GIF Liberation Day, the day on which US Patent 4,558,302 expires. The patent describes the LZW compression algorithm used in .gif files. That said, maybe the prices of image editing applications will drop slightly when corporations don't have to pay fees to Unisys."
I don't think you'll be getting lower prices on software products because there is no longer a patent on LZW. I believe it's like $5000 to get a license for a single product. A pretty hefty fee, but that means nothing to someone like Adobe.
As noted on the GD website, the patent doesn't expire internationally until July 7th of next year.
We used their LZW compression algorithm in our product (for compressing product update files). It compresses text quite well for very little code. I asked Unisys what the fees would be for the use of this and it was US $2000! As a result we don't have that compression option in countries that have this patent.
Stuff paying $2000 for something that can be represnted by less than 30 lines of code.
Sorry, not yet. As noted on the GD website , the patent doesn't expire internationally until July 7th of next year. So no GIF support in the GD library for another year. :-(
Note, this only applies to the patent in the US.
License Information on GIF and Other LZW-based Technologies
"After expiration of the U.S. LZW patent on June 20, 2003, liability for patent infringement will occur only if an infringing act with respect to a product or service (e.g., developing, selling, offering to sell, making, using, distributing, downloading, exporting and/or importing) occurs in a country where the LZW patent has not expired.
Since each country has its own patent laws and rules regarding what constitutes patent infringement, effected persons may wish to seek advice from their own legal counsel."
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
found in google cache
License Information on GIF
"The U.S. LZW patent expires June 20, 2003, the counterpart Canadian patent expires July 7, 2004, the counterpart patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expire June 18, 2004, and the Japanese counterpart patents expire June 20, 2004. "
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
PNG is supported on every browser and has been for years, even PocketPCs support it.
;)
'gif'-like PNGs, truecolor PNGs, and boolean transparent PNGs work great everywhere, but IE (for Windows; IE for PocketPC and Mac render fine, go figure) can't handle variable alpha transparent PNGs without tricks (and the 'AlphaImageLoader' trick fails on https:// addresses due to another IE bug, horray Microsoft).
There's no reason to use non-animated gif rather than PNG. PNGs are smaller (some crappy programs do a poor job of compressing them, convert PNG to PNG in GraphicsMagik to shrink), can do truecolor so you don't have ugly dithered gif graphics, and can do variable alpha transparency (although 5 year old bugs in x86/IE require detecting IE and spitting out ugly MS-specific HTML for this; most people just settle for boolean transparency, which is a shame). Even ignoring the functionality that is hard or impossible to use on x86/IE due to IE being a buggy mess, PNG still does more than gif (except animations - almost no one supports MNG right now).
Recent versions of gd and PHP have support for all these PNG modes. I know, as I fixed them.
Which I why I repeatedly used the term PNG8. 8 bit PNG, 256 colors, single-bit transparency. Just like GIF. Works great, even in IE.
Actually, I discovered this early today -- a convenient little javascript hack that makes alpha transparency work in IE. Yep, it's really cool. Oddly enough, the spacer image included in it (you'll see if you check it out) is a GIF; it's easy enough to change to a PNG, though, and it works just as well.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
One more time... IE supports PNG8 with 1 bit of transparency, just like GIF. It does not support alpha transparency. So again, IE would do just fine with PNG8 with a single bit of transparency.
IANAL, but here's Canada's patent act.
;-)
Interesting sections:
27(8) No patent shall be granted for any mere scientific principle or abstract theorem.
>Prove that Canadian law does not allow a patent on "a computing device, with means for memory, input, and output, programmed to perform the following steps: (description of LZW follows)".
No point, because then it would only cover that device. For example, let's say it convered palm pilots using this neato LZW method. No worries, I can still use it on my computer.
I doubt Canadian patent law would allow such a broad definition as "Any device using this method". Because that's what it would have to be to encompass everything the LZW patent already does.
And just because it is patented here doesn't mean the patent isn't contestable. The only patent I could find (mentioned at this informative site) on software was contested and the patent nullified.
How'd I do?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
That's true. Microsoft, for example, makes an 85% profit from Windows sales. In other words, the production, packaging, and R&D constitute only 15% of the cost of Windows.
OLPC Australia
IMO, while people persist with quesionable browsers like Internet Explorer, there'll be a place for GIFs.
AFAIK, GIF is the only image format that supports transparent backgrounds and renders properly in IE.
This means that if you're using transparent image backgrounds, your site will look like shit on 90+ % of visitors' screens - unless you use GIF. Sad but true.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
This is an important point. Further down the thread you have been mocked for having stock in Adobe and all that, but....
If you disagree with a company's policy in certain areas, but it's a profitable company, buying shares is a good plan. Especially if you can get above the minimum shareholding in order to attend annual general meetings, etc (often this limit is very low). You then get to put questions to the board. Being a shareholder gives you good leverage in a company, or at least more leverage than just being Joe Public. Also, you maybe get dividends and stuff ;-)
Greenpeace and others have possibly adopted this tactic, if memory serves, in order to legitimately attend and table questions at multinational company meetings. I generally agree with this, because at the end of the day, corporations are becoming bigger than governments... scary though it may seem, maybe only way to beat the system is to join it and fight from the inside. Like all these people who don't vote, and then complain when the candidate they *thought* would win does not - they have not played the system and have no excuse. Apathy and opinionated chatter is not getting us anywhere. Power to the people can only happen if people use the avenues and channels of democracy as they stand.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
In addition, you you can hack some support to MSIE: just use some javascript combined with "behavior" CSS attribute. Can you see the irony of using non-standard feature to fix non-standard behaviour? I have yet to have any luck with this hack combined with absolute positioning, so that isn't perfect. And as far as I know, one cannot use transcludent PNG as a background with MSIE, with hacks or not.
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
This is a GREAT example of broken IP laws.
Before patenting the compression technology they placed it into the public domain.
After that IBM patented it AND THEN Unisys filed a patent.
Unisys got to keep it's patent becouse they can prove they had it first. But that proof comes in the form of publishing it.
In other words anything you place into the public domain you or anyone else can clame later.
If there was no GPL the first jerk who came along would sue Linus and RMS for IP theft and win.
The reason Compuserve used this compression technology was simply it was placed into the public domain.
But today there is no public domain just IP waiting for someone to scoop up.
You should not be able to file for and receave patent protection for anything that has already been published.
Well this nightmare will soon be over.
I don't actually exist.