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They do have some patents https://patents.justia.com/assignee/zoom-video-communications-inc https://patents.justia.com/assignee/zoom-video-communication... so t

They do have some patents https://patents.justia.com/assignee/zoom-video-communications-inc https://patents.justia.com/assignee/zoom-video-communication... so there was some innovation required. I thought they may use middle out compression, but couldn't see its mentioned

chrismorgan 6y ago
Patents are an extremely poor signal of required innovation; I strongly suspect they’re worse than random. Most innovation is retained as trade secret rather than patented. Patents are more an indicator that you’re a big business, or that you are operating in a domain where hostile use of patents is rife (and video is one such area). I just did a very quick skim through those patents (just reading what’s on that page and not the actual claims), and these are my impressions. ’390: obvious, prior art may also exist, as what it describes has been a standard technique even within video codecs for many years. ’900: obvious, also an abstract idea so it shouldn’t be patentable. ’511: obvious and probable prior art, the technique has been used for DRM for years. ’454/’218: no idea, could be valid, but (personal opinion) it doesn’t sound like it should be patentable anyway.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  Funny, patents were originally intended to stop people keeping trade secrets, now so many patents are just nonsense, all the important stuff is kept secret again.
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    Network software has made it possible to keep trade secrets perfectly. When you deployed something physical, people could analyse it in detail, trying to figure out what the ingredients to your drink were, pulling apart your widget and measuring it very precisely, that kind of thing. Some would be easy, some would be hard, but it was all at least physically theoretically possible. So the patent system said “save us the trouble of figuring it out, and we’ll grant you a monopoly on this particular approach for a while”. But with network software, the interesting part is out of reach, so you can’t reverse-engineer it.

chrismorgan 6y ago

Patents are an extremely poor signal of required innovation; I strongly suspect they’re worse than random. Most innovation is retained as trade secret rather than patented. Patents are more an indicator that you’re a big business, or that you are operating in a domain where hostile use of patents is rife (and video is one such area). I just did a very quick skim through those patents (just reading what’s on that page and not the actual claims), and these are my impressions. ’390: obvious, prior art may also exist, as what it describes has been a standard technique even within video codecs for many years. ’900: obvious, also an abstract idea so it shouldn’t be patentable. ’511: obvious and probable prior art, the technique has been used for DRM for years. ’454/’218: no idea, could be valid, but (personal opinion) it doesn’t sound like it should be patentable anyway.

chadcmulligan 6y ago
Funny, patents were originally intended to stop people keeping trade secrets, now so many patents are just nonsense, all the important stuff is kept secret again.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  Network software has made it possible to keep trade secrets perfectly. When you deployed something physical, people could analyse it in detail, trying to figure out what the ingredients to your drink were, pulling apart your widget and measuring it very precisely, that kind of thing. Some would be easy, some would be hard, but it was all at least physically theoretically possible. So the patent system said “save us the trouble of figuring it out, and we’ll grant you a monopoly on this particular approach for a while”. But with network software, the interesting part is out of reach, so you can’t reverse-engineer it.