ps. hot today reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6uuqcd/google_...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obvious...

[2] - https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.2540

Good reference on this patent:

https://encode.ru/threads/2648-Published-rANS-patent-by-Stor...

Claim one: none of the transform block stuff etc. is new. The only thing added is:

> processing a binary flag or bit using the Boolean ANS decoder to generate an output value for the binary flag or bit using the ANS state; and

>processing a token using the symbol ANS decoder to generate an output value for the token using the ANS state;

That's just slotting existing ANS implementation as a module. Other entropy encoders were used in that exact stage prior to this.

The other claims 2-8 just add on ANS optimizations that aren't video specific whatsoever. Things including using a bytestream instead of a bitstream.

If any of those were a significant invention by the filee (I'm not going to rule that out, someone please chime in if there was one), why didn't they also patent their application to the entropy encoding stage of image encoding? Or the entropy encoding stage of all sorts of other compression applications?

I haven't read through all the others below claim 8, they look similar with the main variation being using instructions stored in "non-transitory memory" (hardware decoders), but there might be something more video-specific there.

As before, it is still illegal to file for a patent you did not invent without the inventor's consent.

For example, it's perfectly okay to patent an idea in use a thousand years ago, nowadays, as long as most people in that field haven't heard of it; thanks to recently truly perverse judicial decisions.