Tandberg attempts to patent x264 open source algorithm

http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/589

by av500 • 16 years ago

231 44 16 years ago

x264dev.multimedia.cx

stefanve• 16 years ago

That is freaking bizarre, curious about the follow up on this. I think someone is about to loos his job

oiujhygtyhuji• 16 years ago

No need - lying on a patent application is perjury.

And it's a federal court - remember not to drop the soap in the shower!

prodigal_erik3• 16 years ago

This waste of carbon isn't worthy of scrubbing Knuth's toilet, and I'm all for drumming him out of tech for life. But our neglect of security in prisons isn't funny.

pavlov• 16 years ago

This guy is named as the inventor on the patent application: http://no.linkedin.com/pub/lars-petter-endresen/0/6ab/390

ig1• 16 years ago

Tandberg was acquired earlier this year by Cisco, if anyone has any Cisco contacts it might be worth bringing this to their attention as Cisco may not be aware of this as it happened prior to their acquisition.

Cisco HR peeps have been quite active in the UK developer community recruiting for Tandberg recently, I'll forward this to one of them to see if can get some attention.

kqueue• 16 years ago

I'll see what I can do.

shorbaji• 16 years ago

I work for TANDBERG (now a part of Cisco) and I've dropped a note to Lars, the "inventor" in the patent. I certainly would like to hear the other side of the story and will share it if I get it.

jcromartie2• 16 years ago

What "other side" is there, if it's a step-by-step description of x264?

moondowner• 16 years ago

Another prove that software patents should be abolished.

jrockway2• 16 years ago

By similar logic, copyright should be abolished because someone plagiarised their final English paper?

People will always abuse any system, but that doesn't mean the system should be taken away from everyone else. I don't like software patents, but this is not a software patent issue. It's an "intellectual dishonesty" issue -- taking credit for someone else's work.

wtallis2• 16 years ago

The problem is that it was worth Tandberg's effort to put together and submit this fraudulent patent application. Enough applications like this get granted, and later go unchallenged or get upheld, that Tandberg had a reasonable expectation that they would get a patent to extort money out of somebody or scare competitors out of competing with them.

Software patents need to be harder to get, easier to overturn, and there need to be steep incentives to not submit invalid applications.

antimatter152• 16 years ago

Even if copyright was hypothetically abolished, it doesn't make this "intellectual dishonesty" any less intellectually dishonest. In that case, it would be up to the school to penalize that - which is exactly what happens most of the time anyway.

The existence of the patent system encourages people to commit such "intellectual dishonesty" by providing a monopolistic and monetary incentive for doing it. There's a difference between a system that is abused, and a system that's fundamentally asking for such abuse.

chesser2• 16 years ago

Eventually, copyright will die off completely. It's just a matter of when.

When we have sci-fi nanoreplicators that can copy luxury (flying) cars, food, etc., all scarcity will be artificial.

Alternatively, when we have very convincing VR, everyone will be able to experience what he or she wants to as much as he or she wants to. There won't be anything to trade because you can't give someone something they can't already get. Strong general AI will fill in for everything.

Our puny mammalian brains with their limited sensory inputs will be entertained by not-very-advanced technology that eventually becomes effectively free. It doesn't even take that much fidelity to fool us -- think of how unconvincing dreams are after you wake up. There's seemingly some credulity switch that gets flipped which makes us believe something to be reality without really questioning it. Switch that on while awake and World of Warcraft is probably more than good enough.

Incidentally, I noticed that asking yourself the question, "how did I get here?" ala Inception is really annoying when you're awake. It's difficult to question your reality when you subjectively feel it to be true.

My awake existence is mostly in one place staring at a monitor. I almost never do that when I dream, I'm "physically" doing something completely unrelated.

noonespecial• 16 years ago

The difference is that once your plagiarized paper is accepted, you can't go around threatening the other students with F's on their papers if they don't pay you off.

sulla2• 16 years ago

Given that there was the possibility of a 'three-strikes' provision for copyright abusers in ACTA, there should at least be a discussion about penalties for patent owners that makes it so the owner can no longer file any patents if a certain number of patents are invalidated.

nickpinkston• 16 years ago

I love it - but the patent-anything crew (IBM, Intel, etc.) would throw all their money at that. Maybe at least a percentage of total patents after the first 10 invalid ones, or something similar?

antimatter152• 16 years ago

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." - Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution

astrange• 16 years ago

This is a pandering quote which everyone already knows and not really a useful comment at all.

wtallis2• 16 years ago

I don't see how the quote was relevant given that there is already plenty of evidence that will defeat the patent application, but it seems like very few people actually know the constitutional basis for intellectual property laws.

Even here on HN, I've seen posts from people who think patents are intended as a reward for inventors, rather than an incentive to invent. Under US law, inventors and writers do not automatically deserve exclusive rights - those rights are granted only as a means to encourage progress.

jcromartie2• 16 years ago

This is a frank response to a pandering quote which serves to let everybody know that you are a good comment watchdog and won't just ignore bullshit.

tomjen3• 16 years ago

Given this, could one use that clause as a defense if sued by these "people"?

lwhi2• 16 years ago

I dislike the patent system, and I also dislike dishonesty - but could it have been possible that the person accused might have stumbled across the same solution independently?

sili2• 16 years ago

If the person came up with the solution on his own, wouldn't he patent it in full including the missing piece that the author checked in only later? Without that piece, the solution does not work.

DarkShikari• 16 years ago

No, it works -- that was just an extra optimization.

JoachimSchipper• 16 years ago

Yes, but it strains credibility that he'd come up with it just after a similar commit was made to x264.

dfranke• 16 years ago

It's unfortunate this wasn't noticed seven weeks ago. The application was published August 7. The public comment period runs for two months afterward.

sili2• 16 years ago

I would imagine that this patent could be easily invalidated using prior art argument, the only down side is all the wasted effort and legal fees to fight the battle.

JVerstry• 16 years ago

"35 U.S.C. 102 Conditions for patentability; novelty and loss of right to patent. A person shall be entitled to a patent unless (a)the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent, or ... (f) he did not himself invent the subject matter sought to be patented"

Even if Tandberg were granted a patent because the USPTO missed the information provided in the post, it would not stand in court.

Such information should be communicated to the USPTO to have them kill the application during examination.

Case closed.

gnubardt• 16 years ago

Were it granted, the patent would still be a threat, even if it wouldn't hold in court. Organizations that can't afford the legal fees to retaliate against a patent suit are often forced to settle.

meta• 16 years ago

If the implementation was indeed taken, it might be a dangerous mishap/black eye against their community reputation. It appears that Tandberg relies heavily on Opensource for at least one of their other products. Gstreamer and Tandberg video: http://gstconf.ubicast.tv/videos/case-study-tandberg-and-gst... It appears (given they were invited to a gstreamer conference) that they have been getting along with that project so maybe this was a one-of mistake?

edit: make myself clearer

kjetil• 16 years ago

Norwegian news site digi.no picked up this story and have a statement from Tandberg. Tandberg claims that their invention is different from what's in x264 and that they invented it before x264 the referred code.

Google translated link: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h...

plist• 16 years ago

The norwegian link clearly states that they have documented their algorithm 7 months before it was released from x264. If this is true, there is definately nothing to see here...

stuinzuri• 16 years ago

They _claim_ to have documented it internally. Garrett-Glaser has publicly documented his case. Any blind faith in the accuracy of Tandberg's response is not shared by me.

Tandberg attempts to patent x264 open source algorithm

Related Stories