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One of the main points is that code behind Theora has been made public for years, and in fact Xiph has been actively asking people to tell them if there is a pa
by Qz 17y ago
One of the main points is that code behind Theora has been made public for years, and in fact Xiph has been actively asking people to tell them if there is a patent violation. The significance of this comes into play in a potential lawsuit, because patent enforcement is simultaneously a burden on the patent-holder: if they are aware of a violation, it is their legal duty to enforce the patent, and if they fail in that duty then eventually they lose the right to claim damages from infringement (big oversimplification here).
The point being, even if MPEG-LA does have infringing patents, the patent holders can reasonably be expected to have known about it for years, and so if they decided to sue they would have to explain why they didn't enforce their patent in the years that Xiph has been asking them to enforce the patent.
Conclusion: all this talk about Theora potentially being in patent-jeopardy is FUD and BS.
- tptacek 17y agoIt's trademark owners that have an affirmative duty to enforce their marks. The situation for patentholders is far murkier. It is far from true that a patentholder that knew about Theora for years would be simply unable to enforce their patent against Theora users.
- orangecat 17y agoIt is far from true that a patentholder that knew about Theora for years would be simply unable to enforce their patent against Theora users. It's not necessarily false either. The doctrine of laches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_%28equity%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_%28equity%29) says that you can't deliberately delay legal action in order to run up the alleged damages or prevent them from taking alternate paths. By publicly making potential patent holders aware of what they're doing, Xiph should be in a good position to claim that defense. (In case it's not blatantly obvious, IANAL).
- tzs 17y agoA laches defense in a patent suit generally only affects damages, limiting the plaintiff to damages based on infringement AFTER the suit was filed. If all the plaintiff is interested in is telling the defendant to stop infringing, laches isn't much of a problem.