> With regard to patents, VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent

> With regard to patents, VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free. This is the scary one. The other points are simply a matter of improving the spec / technology. edit: read comment #16 "Actually ripping of H.264 may be a way to avoid submarine patents. By having design so similar, Google only has to worry about MPEG-LA patents. So there is a known, finite list of patents to review. Given bizarre tweaks and omissions in VP8, I suspect that’s exactly what they did – looked at claims on H.264 and tweaked VP8 just a little to avoid crucial points (remember in patents you have to infringe all points in a claim, if you infringe 2 out of 3, then you’re safe)."