> In the article I linked, the creator of ANS asserts that Microsoft's patent covers the variant used in JXL.
Microsoft is a member of ISO. They're obligated to notify ISO if they have any relevant patents to new standards. The subcommittee that JPEG is part of is even chaired by a Microsoft employee, so it's not like they'd be unaware.
Duda seems to think that Microsoft's patent simply covers rANS in general, but this seems dubious. Not only would it cover a lot more than JXL, it would have shitloads of prior art. The patent seems to describe an improvement of rANS, which isn't used in JXL.
Further still, Microsoft has straight up said that the patent is free to use for any open codec.
> That is completely irrelevant to Chrome, why would Google change their mind on that basis?
WebP adoption was slowed, and is to some extent widely hated, because it for many years had zero support outside the web. Not only is JXL seeing faster than adoption outside the web than WebP, it's seeing faster adoption than AVIF. That seems relevant to me. And of course, web companies literally can't adopt it until at least one browser starts supporting it. Shopify already serves JXL when you enable the flag. Facebook wants to use it. Yet Chrome's devs claim that there is basically no ecosystem interest. It's pretty ridiculous.
> In the article I linked, the creator of ANS asserts that Microsoft's patent covers the variant used in JXL.
This doesn't necessarily mean JPEG XL is patent-encumbered (the patent is still annoying, but not necessarily this way). It is recommended for ISO standards that relevant patents should be disclosed and available on a non-discriminatory basis [1], and while patent holders can ignore this recommendation they generally have no reason to do so. In the case of JPEG XL only Google [2] and Cloudinary [3] filed patent declarations, so Microsoft is reasonably thought to have no patents relevant to JPEG XL.
I don't see a scenario where Microsoft will actually use these patents against Firefox or Chrome. They're doing everything they can to curry favor with web developers, and they'll destroy it in one fell swoop if they even think about it.
That being said, I'm curious why they felt these patents were worth $1B. There must be something really special in there.
(Disclaimer: Mozilla employee with no knowledge outside of what's been posted on the Internet about it.)
>Microsoft has shown its intent to drive out other open source software using overaggressive patent enforcement. The Microsoft dominated MPEG-LA consortium recently sent out a request for patents that would cover Google's VP8 video codec, and one company has already filed a private antitrust complaint against MPEG-LA for this behavior.3 MPEG-LA is a patent pool organized to collect and license patents on the H.264/MPEG video codec, a method of digitally encoding video files and decoding them for playback. Google is attempting to introduce its own codec, the VP8 codec, to compete with the MPEG codec. Once again, by seeking non-essential patents to assert offensively rather than defensively, Microsoft intends to drive out competition from open source developers.
Is MPEG-LA really dominated by MS in any sense of the word? Just curious.
MS seems to be actually paying them more for licenses in the end than what they get for a few patents they have in the pool. Not sure about Apple.
In any case, they're supporting VP8/WebM via user installed plugins in IE and have stated that they're not shipping it with the OS because they're afraid of patent trolls suing them for very high damages because they would be liable for hundreds of millions of Windows licenses.
"Ultimately, Microsoft remains agnostic in terms of HTML5 video as long as there is clarity on the intellectual property issues. To make it clear that we are fully willing to participate in a resolution of these issues, Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to include all other major providers of playback software and devices."
The question of indemnification seems pertinent to me, but I've only been superficially following this issue - maybe it's a red herring and Google has good reason not to offer indemnification etc. I'm curious to see the case for that.
> That previous attempts failed does not mean they quit trying. IE9/10 does show some goodwill, but also shows the are still in the EEE game. Take for example the hardware accelerated canvas: Several (non-MS) websites had "optimized for IE" marketing campaigns. Such optimization is nonsense when using standards. Also, MS publicly stated WebGL has security problems because of direct access to the shaders. However, they forget to mention Silverlight has the exact same problem.
Cool story, bro. Most people these days either use the browser that comes with the OS, or install the one they want.
> Eh, no. It's true more patent trolls exist, but not many companies in the industry try to enforce software patents.
Really? Did you forget that Oracle started a lawsuit against Google for the usage of Java within Android? Or how about Apple's lawsuit against Samsung for the look and feel of the Galaxy Tablet? How about i4i's lawsuit against Microsoft?
> Eh, no. It's true more patent trolls exist, but not many companies in the industry try to enforce software patents.
[Citation needed]
From Wikipedia: The C# language definition and the CLI are standardized under ISO and Ecma standards that provide reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing protection from patent claims.
You seem to have a hard time differentiating the language, C# from the library, .NET. It's similar to C++ and the STL.
>They're licensing their own intellectual property, which happens to be used in Google's products.
The only one claiming that is Microsoft. Until the issue has been decided in court, we can't know that Google has infringed on any of Microsoft's intellectual property. According to the article, none of the claims have yet been contested in court. Therefore, we don't know for sure that Microsoft's technology is being infringed upon by Google.
That bit was hilarious to me - Microsoft and Google joining up to form a patent pool with zero patents in it. If that's what it takes to get MS on board with WebM, why not?
Also, it's worth pointing out that "patent indemnification" is a stronger guarantee than MPEG-LA gives for H.264.
"The answer "Hey, we're working on getting all our patents into our patent pledge" would totally satisfy me. But let's be honest: It's never going to happen.
"
It's not supposed to happen?
The same way that one does not have to give up all their worldly possessions to be a good catholic.
"Patent licensing that only benefits people using Google tech is exactly the sort of hypocrisy Google and others accuse Microsoft of."
Except that's not what it is, and spinning it this way just shows you keep trying to find ways to hate it.
It's patent that benefits people using the code google gave them.
If you take the code from a google patented project, and use it, derive from it, whatever, you end up with patent protection.
Which, as i said, 99% of people do, including Microsoft, so your next example is simply wrong.
These companies simply don't usually do what you are saying is the issue.
IE
" Obviously, since Microsoft's OS would implement it's own mobile device tech, the sorts of protections afforded by Google via Apache licensing probably doesn't protect Microsoft from a suit by Google, for example."
Is neither obvious, nor correct. In fact, they just use our implementation in the cases i'm aware of.
The last time someone came to us and said "i want to use the patents but not the code", was webm. So we created a spec, and gave patent license to all implementations of the spec, google created or not.
Can you provide a real example instead of theoretical cases? I can state, affirmatively, that anyone who has come to us with a serious need, we've solved it, AFAIK.
Can you provide a counterexample?
"What is the harm in Google pledging all of their patents, if they have no intention to ever use them offensively?"
What's the benefit?
There are lots of possible harms, like the inability to use them defensively in certain situations (no pledge is perfect, it's not possible to create something without loopholes), the inability to maintain the status quo of patent peace, etc. There's a lot of risk here.
You seem to have this black and white view where this is zero risk, and it's just silly to me.
It's like saying: What's the harm in destroying all of the US nuclear weapons if they never plan on using them offensively?
You act as if this is a zero risk proposition, but it's not.
Most interesting bit: "Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to include all other major providers of playback software and devices."
Could be an olive branch, or it could be a veiled threat (they seem to be implying that VP8, much like Linux, actually infringes Microsoft patents). Unfortunately the rest of it seems like political posturing, and Mr Hachamovitch has always been seemed a slippery character (going on his posts to that blog) so I'd have to assume this is a cunning rhetorical trap rather than a genuine offer until someone who knows better convinces me otherwise.
>1. Are these generic, broad "idea" patents and hence there is nothing Google/OEMs can really do here to avoid licensing them? If not, why don't they use an alternative implementation to avoid the conflict?
no alternative implementation would help as it is not about some specific patents, it is more about [litigation] threat that some patents in the vast portfolio can be found that may be in some sense considered violated. Basically it is racket called Android Licensing Program - you pay "protection money" to MS in exchange for it not bothering you.
What interesting here is that Google seems to leave its OEMs to fend for themselves, thus instead of fighting one Google over 2B/yearly pot (the show that first row tickets for would sell like for Superball), MS extorts fifty million here and hundred million there which is much easier and safer.
"Myhrvold and Microsoft are rank hypocrites, one inventor who has sold patents to them told me. (He declined to be named.) His point was that Microsoft in its tiger years complained about the dead hand of intellectual-property law, and the costly enforcement process, but now it acquires and exploits patents to protect its monopolies."
They're the ones pushing that this be the defactor standard for web video. If that's the case then they shouldn't attempt to block a party from exercising their patent rights by effectively threatening that if they do so they won't have any access to video on the web.
Could you imagine MS saying in their Windows license agreement saying that they can revoke your licenses if you sue them over a patent?
Your premise is absurd. Microsoft has the ActiveSync protocol patented to hell and back, and charges exorbitant licensing fees for its use. They're currently suing Motorola (a Google subsidiary) over exactly this. So, how about directing your ire at Microsoft for choosing to both not support open standards, and abusing the patent system to prevent others from reasonably implementing their proprietary standards. Because, I don't see any reason to get pissed at Google for not letting Microsoft continue to soak them on this.
>>Microsoft has issued a thorough, unrevokable, legally binding Community Promise to not assert patent claims over .NET implementations
I remember when Microsoft claimed to open their Office document formats. I argued then that I didn't know how (legal loophole, impossible to implement, etc) -- but there was a catch. A monopoly company don't want to do that -- "follow the money".
Later, it was found out that the specification was thousands of pages long, etc.
Are there e.g. any creative loopholes in that agreement? How do you know? Has that Promise been analyzed by a good team of lawyers?
Has Mono been checked for other patent troubles? E.g. doesn't Microsoft itself pay licenses to Oracle, because .NET is too similar to the Java environment?
Edit: I do hope I'm wrong, of course. (Fixed a bit of grammar.)
> Wait, seriously? That's it? that's the patent MS uses to force cellphone manufacturers to pay them for Android?
No, that is not "the" patent. That is one patent. Microsoft has more. They also have patents that they're not even revealing, because they like to do blanket cross-licenses.
One could argue that it is Microsoft's strongest patent, and therefore its loss puts their patent revenues at risk. This is a version of the Oracle/Google scenario, but for patents rather than for copyright.
On the other hand, one could also argue that it is Microsoft's weakest patent, which they threw out there as a sacrificial lamb. Any patent that they revealed would be subject to intense scrutiny. Thus, it's safer to use a large number of trivial patents rather than a small number of more involved patents. (Especially if the legal system is so broken that both types of patents have an equal chance of prevailing. If it's totally random, then you don't gain anything by using a stronger patent.)
This would be the IBM/Sun scenario. IBM went to Sun and claimed that they were violating a patent. Sun replied that the IBM patent was obvious, so it would easily get struck down. Then the IBM lawyer pointed out that IBM had tens of thousands of patents. If Sun could get this one patent struck down, then IBM could just repeat the process with another patent, and they'd never run out. So in the end, Sun ended up buying a blanket license for all of IBM's patents.
"Unless you are suggesting Microsoft owns patents in using the standards and somehow might sue users over that, but both OATH and IETF have patent grants in place regarding the standards."
Exactly what I'm suggesting. Both Microsoft and IBM regularly file plenty of patents pertaining to about anything they create. They also regularly sue companies over them with Android alone producing hundreds of millions in revenue from such suits. So, one shouldn't use anything from Microsoft that might need to be cloned or ported later unless having a copyright and/or patent license. The risk with them is too high.
"Open source under any particular license (esp. and inc. the GPL) is orthogonal to it being immune to patent suits and/or lock-in/EOL."
A number of OSS licenses specifically include a patent license for use of that tech. It's implied by GPL for forks, too, which is not the case for OSS clones of a closed but free product. So, it's not orthogonal but directly involved via creation of patent licenses & protection of forks. It eliminates a good chunk of the type of liability that Microsoft likes to create.
"It's also orthogonal to security and/or privacy you can have secure apps both with and without open source."
I've made the claim myself & my background in high-assurance security lets me know the difference. This app isn't high-security or evaluated to it by any trusted party. So, we have to assume it's not secure by default like anything else. Nonetheless, this tangent doesn't matter at all to my point that Microsoft + closed-source offering poses risks that Microsoft + GPL offering don't. And that Microsoft makes such risks real for companies often enough for it to matter.
"it's still a better cross-platform option than SMS (and Google Authenticator which isn't as cross-platform, but has as many risks as you mention here as Microsoft's option)."
I don't use these products at all. So, I can't evaluate their features, UX, portability, etc. I'll take your word for it as a user that it might do a good job or offer advantages. My starting point based on comments here would probably be FreeOTP as it's free, open-source, and Apache includes patent provisions. I can imagine it not having Microsoft or Google's features to point I'd use them for overall cost-benefit analysis but I'd certainly have fall-back option.
Microsoft is a member of ISO. They're obligated to notify ISO if they have any relevant patents to new standards. The subcommittee that JPEG is part of is even chaired by a Microsoft employee, so it's not like they'd be unaware.
Duda seems to think that Microsoft's patent simply covers rANS in general, but this seems dubious. Not only would it cover a lot more than JXL, it would have shitloads of prior art. The patent seems to describe an improvement of rANS, which isn't used in JXL.
Further still, Microsoft has straight up said that the patent is free to use for any open codec.
> That is completely irrelevant to Chrome, why would Google change their mind on that basis?
WebP adoption was slowed, and is to some extent widely hated, because it for many years had zero support outside the web. Not only is JXL seeing faster than adoption outside the web than WebP, it's seeing faster adoption than AVIF. That seems relevant to me. And of course, web companies literally can't adopt it until at least one browser starts supporting it. Shopify already serves JXL when you enable the flag. Facebook wants to use it. Yet Chrome's devs claim that there is basically no ecosystem interest. It's pretty ridiculous.
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