Re: potent patent problems

From: Brad Jensen <brad_at_elstore.com>
Date: Fri 26 Jan 2001 10:23:33 -0500

BRAD JENSEN <brad_at_elstore.com> WROTE:
> Anybody know when the Unisys patent on LZW dies? It
> should be soon now. Virtually every web site that uses
> GIF's is violating this patent. Unisys goes after
> people with deep pockets. Theoretically they could go
> after every single advertiser that uses GIF banners.
 
ROBERT J. WOODHEAD <trebor_at_animeigo.com> WROTE:
> This is not correct.

It IS correct, in the sense that the option of whether
to charge or not rests in the hands of Unisys, not the
user.

ROBERT J. WOODHEAD <trebor_at_animeigo.com> WROTE:
> IIRC, Unisys only requires licenses of COMMERCIAL
> application creators whose applications manipulate
> (basically, if it packs or unpacks) gifs.

This is a choice made by Unisys, not the limit of
their rights.

ROBERT J. WOODHEAD <trebor_at_animeigo.com> WROTE:
> As long as your gifs are created by an application
> that is properly licensed, you can use it to do all the
> giffing you might want, and serve them on the web.
> Your webserver does not need a license because it is
> just transmitting the data, not manipulating it.

Au contraire mon frere, the web server definitely
manipulates the data, although it does not lzw unpack
it. It mime encodes it. The data is converted from one
format to another, and Unisys might argue that this is
prepatory to unpacking it, and therefore a preliminary
step in the same process. Without this step, the
decompress on the other end could not happen, and this
step is only being done so that the decompress can
happen. Therefore it is integral to the decompression
process, which must be licensed.

A good lawyer could Dershowitz this into some real
money, especially if they took it in front of the
Florida Supreme Court.

Brad Jensen brad_at_elstore.com
President
Electronic Storage Corporation Tulsa OK USA
918-664-7276

LaserVault Report Retrieval & Data Mining
www.Laservault.com

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Received on Fri Jan 26 2001 - 09:23:33 CST