The LZW GIF patent trolling was from Unisys (It was a submarine patent for Compuserve), and it only affected encoders -- it didn't threaten the web in any way.

The LZW GIF patent trolling was from Unisys (It was a submarine patent for Compuserve), and it only affected encoders -- it didn't threaten the web in any way. The video wars were because [Apple, MS, Real, Macromedia, Sun] were all trying to compete with each other using crap products that conflated [Branding, Plugin, Container Format, Codec] in a mash of uselessness. Flash won not because it had the same codecs on all platforms, the plugin was customizable the same way on all platforms, and the end-user branding was all yours to theme. The most interesting part of <video> is not codecs or containers, but the full + uniform control and customizability via its Javascript API. The only reason there is any problem at all is because Mozilla is refusing to expose access to QT / DirectShow / GStreamer.