It was good of you, but you have less of a risk of being sued than Google does. They need a war chest to negotiate with.
> you have less of a risk of being sued than Google does.
In fact, a company called Acacia tried just that. When they found out the parent company was European they lost interest.
So you have less of a risk than Google does?
I think so. European courts are generally (for the moment, at least) not too impressed by software patents, you'd have to have an iron clad one to make it stnad up in court here.
We don't have the equivalent of an 'eastern Texas district', where the courts are favorably impressed by anything that carries a patent office stamp.
I expressly did not do that because to me it was an obvious extension of being able to do 'stills'. After all, simply making it move does not require much ingenuity, merely a couple of nights of hard work.
Looking back I'm happy I didn't do that. I refused to 'play the game', even if it could have made me a boatload of money I still stand by that decision.
Whether google is a multinational or a one man shop, to apply for a patent simply because of scaling an existing algorithm up to 'cluster size' in my opinion is not the nicest thing. For them to 'grant' licenses like these and then to receive the kind of groveling gratitude present in that email in return is really disgusting.