1994.09.02 20:17 "Rules about using libtiff to manipulate tiff with LZW compression?", by Shimon Gonen

1994.09.02 20:17 "Rules about using libtiff to manipulate tiff with LZW compression?", by Shimon Gonen

I have read in compression.faq that there are several patents for compression alogorithms such as LZW and run length encoding. There are a mutitude of formats and programs that use these compression methods (e.g. gif and tiff files and programs).

What do you have to do to use programs or files using these compression algorithms?

For instance, does every program that uses libtiff to import or manipulate tiff files have to pay somebody for these patents?

Are the patents for compressing the data, uncompressing the data or both?

Thanks

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Shimon Gonen - gonen@spectra.com