LZW patents expiration information
"Nelson H. F. Beebe" <[email protected]> Sat, 16 Aug 2003 07:58:59 -0600 (MDT)
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.graphics.mng.general |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Gavin Lambert <[email protected]> writes on Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:10:48 +1200: >> I thought the LZW patent expired in June this year? From http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw/ I quote: >> ... >> More and more people are becoming aware that the reading and/or >> writing of GIF images requires a license to use Unisys patented Lempel >> Ziv Welch (LZW) data compression and decompression technology, >> including United States Patent No. 4,558,302, Japanese Patent Numbers >> 2,123,602 and 2,610,084, and patents in Canada, France, Germany, Italy >> and the United Kingdom. Since January of 1995, Unisys has entered into >> almost three thousand license agreements for use of GIF and other >> LZW-based technology. >> >> The U.S. LZW patent expires June 20, 2003, 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. >> >> After expiration of the U.S. LZW patent on June 20, 2003, liability >> for patent infringement will occur only if an infringing act with >> respect to a product or service (e.g., developing, selling, offering >> to sell, making, using, distributing, downloading, exporting and/or >> importing) occurs in a country where the LZW patent has not expired. >> ... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - Center for Scientific Computing FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - University of Utah Internet e-mail: [email protected] - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB [email protected] [email protected] - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 [email protected] - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Send the message body "help" to [email protected]