LibTiff Mailing List
TIFF and LibTiff Mailing List Archive
November 1999
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Previous by Thread
Next by Thread
Previous by Date
Next by Date
Contact
The TIFF Mailing List Homepage
This list is run by Frank Warmerdam
Archive maintained by AWare Systems
Thread
1999.12.01 13:56 "Re: libtiff 3.5.3 release.", by Bruce Cameron
Covers non-commercial use?? What about if you write your own LZW compression [the algorithm is published and well known]. I have done that in more than one executable. Daniel McCoy wrote: > Exactly. And Unisys is counting on just that. > The word used to be that the patent only covered compression. > That may be true, but Unisys is claiming it controls decompression > as well and if you disagree with them, you better have a lawyer handy. > Folks also used to assume that it was commercial use of the software that > was covered, so that libtiff could be distributed freely, "for educational > purposes", but you needed to talk to Unisys if you used it for commercial > purposes. That may be true as well, but Unisys is claiming all > distribution of software requires a license from them and you better > have a lawyer if you want to argue about it. > > Like many US companies, Unisys is claiming a very wide > interpretation of their patent rights. The idea being that > the license fee is much less than the lawyer fees to fight it, > so companies with enough resources to fight it won't bother > because it's cheaper not to.