Follow-up Comment #6, task #5566 (project administration): EDIT: On June 20, 2003, the United States patent on the LZW algorithm expired [3], which means that Unisys can no longer collect royalties for use of the GIF format in that country. Those bothered with the patent enforcement dubbed this day GIF Liberation Day. The equivalent patents in Europe and Japan expired on June 18 and June 20, 2004 respectively, with the Canadian patent following on July 7.
IBM has also patented the LZW algorithm, but has never enforced this patent. According to the Free Software Foundation that patent will expire on August 11, 2006 in the United States. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gif It is expired in many contries ... i am NOT using the algoritum in my program therefore it does not apply to me. Second, the patent does not apply to me, it is expired in my country (Canada). So, I am allowed to use GIF images in my free project. _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <http://savannah.gnu.org/task/?func=detailitem&item_id=5566> _______________________________________________ Message sent via/by Savannah http://savannah.gnu.org/
