I wish the law was as clear-cut as this. The can of worms in this case is called a 'computer implemented invention'. As I understand it, something patentable

I wish the law was as clear-cut as this. The can of worms in this case is called a 'computer implemented invention'. As I understand it, something patentable outside the algorithmic world does not lose its patentability status simply by being implemented by an algorithm. If you turn that around, if you can implement something without software, it might be patentable. As a hardware-only implementation of these video codecs is possible, they might be patentable. And then the software implementations would also fall under the patent. Lucky for us, this is the point where EU law fragments into a zillion national laws, and each country court would decide something different. So corporations tend to not even try to enforce these patents, even if they acquired it. Unfortunately, the Unified Patent Court was created to clarify things like this, so expect this unstable status quo not to endure forever. Now IANAL and reasoning beyond my competence, so I'd love some other HNers to tell me more.