Oh man... bkmk for later read.
The codec battle stuff reads like a damn mafia novel.
Ping for later
RCA's patent portfolio story has 'em all dreaming of sugar-plums for themselves.
As a blossoming, overused, political, undying (think cancerous) leviathan and hotbed of litigation, the ever-growing reach of the Patent and Trademark Office's output is not the consumers' friend. It's effects burden consumers' purchases with payments to the lawyered-up, clever and financially powerful of the past. They stifle innovation.
Software patents have been far more deleterious than beneficial and served as a vehicle for wealth redistribution to powerful, vested interests.
The phrase used in the article, that it was "obvious that format standardization for the data handled by codecs would be needed" is as ludicrous as it is obviuous to have originated with early patent-holders and NIST (government's National Institute of Standards) bureaucrats.
No stitch of software should be able to inhibit other coders from removing it or devising better ways of doing it next time with different ideas and code, but that's precisely what happens. It becomes entrenched and fed, kept from dying its natural death. Instead of letting market forces determine where consumers will go, "thickets" bounded by neatly-lawyered fences protect "hallowed" ground. Those grounds are regularly corrupted by power, politics and currency "investments." Instead of constantly improved processes, consumers see beneficial future developments get royalty-paymented to a crawl by lawyers and government bureaucrats. Those granted patents and certainly government bureaucrats like it that way. Fortunes are amassed, power is wielded in cudgel fashion and livelihoods and retirements are secured.
A vestige of this type of thing is seen here on FR, as some antagonistic and powerful media outlets squelch attributed public discussion of their work output. The DMCA has lengthened benefits to original copyright holders far longer than originators' lifetimes, to be fought over by heirs with no personal stake therein. In colonial days, public display of news articles was commonly accepted, fostered healthy discussion and the furtherance of the public's best ideas being put forward.
HF
Mark
bflr
PING