[Asterisk-Dev] Re: writing a GPL G.729?

[Eric Wieling aka ManxPower]

Tom Ivar Helbekkmo wrote:
> Eric Wieling aka ManxPower <eric at fnords.org> writes:
> 
> 
>>I have NEVER seen ANY statement by a patent lawyer that the G729
>>patents are not valid in some parts of the world.  All I've seen is
>>non-lawyers saying that.
> 
> 
> Have I completely misunderstood patents?  I thought they were national
> -- i.e., if I patent something here, in Norway, at the Norwegian
> Patent Office, I'll have a Norwegian patent, and nobody else can sell
> products incorporating my idea in Norway without paying me a licence
> fee.  My Norwegian patent will, however, have no clout whatsoever in
> the USA.  In fact, I've been told by people who were supposed to know
> these things, that one has to make a trade-off between the cost of
> patenting an invention in N countries, and the gains one expects from
> those patents.  Thus, one applies for patents in those countries were
> one expects large sales volumes to be possible.
> 
> Frankly, I tend to suspect that there are a lot of little countries
> where G.729 is *not* patented, because they don't have patent offices.

I am not a lawyer of any sort.  I suspect that patents on ITU related 
stuff is enforced/covered under international treaty rather than country 
specific latent law.

--Eric
-- 
I am seeking part or full time employment in the Greater Toronto
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Contact eric at fnords.org.