Hi all, There is an issue which is common ground for most free telephony projects - codec patents. In the near term we need to live within the constraints of these patents, but they won't last forever (well, not as long as Disney isn't a big patent holder). The snag is working out when they will be free. There are several relevant encumbered speech codecs, potentially useful for what we do. The obvious ones are AMR-NB, AMR-WB, G.722.1, G.722.2 (which is basically AMR-WB by another name), G.723.1, G.728, G.729, G.729.1. If you look through the ETSI and ITU web sites you can find some material about who claims patents related to these codecs. However, the information is far from complete. In most cases the actual patent numbers claimed to be relevant are not listed. The dates of filing, granting and expiration are not generally listed, though if the patent numbers are available the dates are easy to find. I think it would be valuable to start a web page where all this information is gathered. We might then get a real picture of when a codec will become unencumbered. Clearly, video and even image, codecs are also of relevance to us. However, I think the speech codecs would be a good starting point. Steve
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Codec+Patents On 6/17/07, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
Hi all,
There is an issue which is common ground for most free telephony projects - codec patents. In the near term we need to live within the constraints of these patents, but they won't last forever (well, not as long as Disney isn't a big patent holder). The snag is working out when they will be free. There are several relevant encumbered speech codecs, potentially useful for what we do. The obvious ones are AMR-NB, AMR-WB, G.722.1, G.722.2 (which is basically AMR-WB by another name), G.723.1, G.728, G.729, G.729.1. If you look through the ETSI and ITU web sites you can find some material about who claims patents related to these codecs. However, the information is far from complete. In most cases the actual patent numbers claimed to be relevant are not listed. The dates of filing, granting and expiration are not generally listed, though if the patent numbers are available the dates are easy to find.
I think it would be valuable to start a web page where all this information is gathered. We might then get a real picture of when a codec will become unencumbered.
Clearly, video and even image, codecs are also of relevance to us. However, I think the speech codecs would be a good starting point.
Steve
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-- wasim h. baig | principal consultant | convergence pk | +92 300 8508070
Replying to Steve Underwood:
There is an issue which is common ground for most free telephony projects - codec patents. In the near term we need to live within the
Doing http://www.google.com/patents?q=g.729 will yield very interesting results (for example 6765931). -- Paul P 'Stingray' Komkoff Jr // http://stingr.net/key <- my pgp key This message represents the official view of the voices in my head
Paul P Komkoff Jr wrote:
Replying to Steve Underwood:
There is an issue which is common ground for most free telephony projects - codec patents. In the near term we need to live within the
Doing http://www.google.com/patents?q=g.729 will yield very interesting results (for example 6765931).
Yes, I think we all know how to do that. That's the easy part. Would you now care to go through that list and 1) Pick out the relevant bits, and not the stuff referring to other stuff 2) Find the related patents in various countries, all of which have different cutoff dates 3) Catalogue all the relevant dates 4) Fill in the missing ones - this is the real stinker to do. Steve
participants (3)
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Paul P Komkoff Jr
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Steve Underwood
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Wasim Baig