Re:Video Codec in 100 lines of Rust
by Dylan16807 on Monday December 19, 2022 @09:04PM
(#34060644)
"method of selecting a reference picture" sounds like an encoding patent, and that one was filed four years after the standard came out. I wouldn't worry about 2028.
It's harder to evaluate the blob of patents from 2004-2005.
That's a great list of the H.264 patent claims--thanks. I had naively assumed that since the first iteration of standard was published in 2003 that "obviously" all related patents (to features in the first iteration, anyway) would have to have been filed prior. Clearly, that is not the case.
Not for H.264; looks like the last patent expires in 2028:
https://scratchpad.fandom.com/wiki/MPEG_patent_lists#H.264_p...
On the other hand, the last patent on MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid/DivX/etc.) which preceded H.264 apparently just expired earlier this month:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Have_the_patents_for_MPEG-4_...
...and IANAL but that means the patents for H.263 and everything older should've already expired too.