[x264-devel] OT: patents (was: [PATCH] Altivec optimizations for quant4x4 and quant4x4dc)

[Guillaume Poirier]

Hi,

Sorry for the off-topic mail

kurosu at free.fr wrote:
> Selon Guillaume POIRIER <poirierg at gmail.com>:
> 
>>--
>>Conditional branch execution in SIMD vector processors are patented! :
>>http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4435758.html
>>All ASM SIMD code writers are outlaws!
> 
> 
> Je comprends ton int�r�t � d�montrer les dangers des brevets "logiciels" (sauf
> que c'est une impl�mentation h/w qui est d�crite), mais en l'occurence, ce
> brevet n'est plus valable depuis 2004, et son contenu est dans le domaine
> public. Donc au contraire, les dits codeurs peuvent invoquer cet art ant�rieur
> pour nier une utilisation illicite d'un brevet dans le domaine.

The idea was really in fact to show how silly some of the patents are.
Yes indeed the example I chose wasn't the best, yet it makes a point:
when companies start to patent very basic computer techniques (for
example: "xor" is AFAIK patented by Adobe), then everyone understands
that sw patents are very bad.

Guillaume

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