3 ms·
They paid for the patents, not the codecs, much less the terrible implementations. Each generation of codec implementations uses a lot of the same techniques,
by blasdel 17y ago
They paid for the patents, not the codecs, much less the terrible implementations.
Each generation of codec implementations uses a lot of the same techniques, most of which are patented by somebody. Google can take On2's patents and license them freely under the condition that licensees must not bring patent infringement suits against anyone else.
They could suck a lot of air out of the debate, on both the freetard and patent-troll sides.
- michaelneale 17y agoYeah I thought it was the patents that were the issue here - not the implementations.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoFrom my reading On2 were one of the few people who avoided rather than licenced some very basic concepts from MPEG and they marketed this as one of their unique selling points. This may partly explain lack of world beating performance compared with what is theoretically possible if you ignore patents, and also means that Google may have been paying for the opposite of patents, patent workarounds (whether On2 patented these in turn I don't know).