Gruber writes: There are two sets of patents that Ogg Theora likely violates. Likely? It would be interesting to know whether he has any actual grounds for maki

Gruber writes: There are two sets of patents that Ogg Theora likely violates. Likely? It would be interesting to know whether he has any actual grounds for making that claim, other than the fact that the MPEG LA are spreading FUD to that effect. And if you’re not willing to concede that Ogg Theora is vulnerable to patent claims, well, then I doubt you’re reading this. It appears that Gruber thinks it's so obvious to any reasonable person that Ogg Theora is "vulnerable to patent claims" that the only people who would disagree are those closed-minded enough that they would avoid reading a different opinion. Of course "vulnerable to patent claims" is weasel language. Almost everything is "vulnerable to patent claims" in the sense that you can't know for sure that at any moment someone won't emerge from the woodwork and claim they've got a patent on it. But: for H.264 it's known that there are people claiming to have patents on the technology, namely the MPEG LA; and it's known that they demand payment for (certain kinds of) using it. For Theora no such thing is known, its creators have disclaimed patent rights, and it's been around for a long time without anyone making such claims. For both H.264 and Theora it's also possible that at some point in the future someone might come forward and say "oh, by the way, I own this and this and this; please pay me $1M/year or get sued". But if someone is trying to choose betwen Theora and H.264 on the basis of their patent situation, it's daft to say (as Gruber does) that the only consideration is that possibility of getting torpedoed by submarine patents. The big difference in the situation with known patents is obviously relevant too.