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ZboXian
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Posts: 25
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 Compuserve Patent on LZW Algorhythm
......Has expired......
What are your views on how this will effect the www in general?
I asked the question????:
What happened on the patent on the gif compression that was do to expire last spring? This is a response from a friend of mine:
The algorhythm LZW which is used to encode gifs is what Compuserve has a patent on.
Here is their patent info;
The United States LZW patent expired on June 20th, 2003..
According to Unisys, the counterpart Canadian patent expires July 7, 2004, the counterpart patents in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy expire June 18, 2004, and the Japanese counterpart patents expire June 20, 2004
So technically you could now use it freely in the U.S. but not in Canada, Japan or all of Europe.
Why all of Europe and not just the listed countries?
Because the European Union now comprises all countries and any patents in one country extend to all.
But you can bet there will be stuff available soon. :o
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