[Asterisk-Users] G.729 licensing/patent?

[Kevin Walsh]

Benjamin on Asterisk Mailing Lists [benjk.on.asterisk.ml at gmail.com] wrote:
> The facts are this:
> 
> A patent for which a letter of patent has been issued is legally in
> force. Period.
> 
> A patent issued in the US may directly or indirectly be in force in
> other countries depending on various treaties or bilateral agreements
> those countries may have entered into.
>
A good source of information is the WIPO website.  See this page
for instance:

    http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/about_patents.html

Note the part that says:

    Finally, its subject matter must be accepted as "patentable"
    under law.  In many countries, scientific theories, mathematical
    methods, plant or animal varieties, discoveries of natural
    substances, commercial methods, or methods for medical treatment
    (as opposed to medical products) are generally not patentable.

Basically, a patent could be granted in the USA and, by way of
treaty, be registered in all signatory countries.  The patent may
not actually be valid in all of the countries mentioned in the patent,
depending upon the local patent rules.

The G.729 patents mentioned in this thread, and others, reference
"an apparatus".  Clearly, if you have a codec_free729.so, or similar,
then that is software and is therefore exempt from patentability
in free countries.  The hardware in this case would be the PC.

Now, if someone had designed a chip that infringed the patents
then the registered patents would be enforceable.  This is the real
reason for using "an apparatus" in the claims.  In countries that
don't allow software and mathematical patents, "an apparatus" can
only mean hardware, and cannot be enforced against a software
implementation.

> 
> You may get in conflict with US law even if you are not in conflict
> with local law and a US court can order a US bank to seize assets you
> or your customers may have with an overseas subsidiary of a US bank.
> Are you really sure all of your assets are out of reach of US
> authorities?
>
I, for one, am very sure of this.

>
> Nobody on this list can give you absolution for something that is
> almost certainly going to get you into legal trouble. You will have to
> see a lawyer who is qualified and authorised to give such kind of
> advice.
> 
Agreed.

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