At 13:21 +0100 25/06/07, Ivo Emanuel Gonçalves wrote:
According to Wikipedia,
"AT&T is trying to sue companies such as Apple Inc. over alleged
MPEG-4 patent infringement.[1][2][3]"
I would be fascinated to see a statement from Apple, Inc. regarding this.
I regret that we (like most companies) cannot
comment on possible pending litigation
(fascinating as some of these cases are). Sorry.
It's also quite interesting that different portions of MPEG-4,
including different sections of video and audio are licensed
separately, so what this means is that any vendor willing to support
MPEG-4 for <video> and <audio> has to locate every patent holder and
pay them.
Yes, video and audio are separate; but there are
also pools that simplify the position.
Oh, and will you look at this, Apple, Inc. holds one the patents! US
6,134,243 [4]. So Apple gets money for every single license sold.
It's nice that you have done the research and
found what we are doing with our patents. Or are
you guessing?
How nice. They are attempting to lock vendors into MPEG-4
Pardon? We use it and are happy when others do.
*We* are not asking more. It's not us who are
proposing any lock or mandate; you might check
the Ogg community for that suggestion. Also, you
might wonder whether licensing of standards is a
net income or cost for us.
and get
money from licenses in the process. Apple, Inc. is no better than
Microsoft.
And Ivo is no better than Sylvia. This isn't a
very helpful comparison. (Actually, I know
Sylvia but regret that I don't think I have ever
met you).
--
David Singer
Apple/QuickTime
