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

[Eric Wieling aka ManxPower]

Eric Wieling aka ManxPower wrote:
> 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.

I should also point out this message 
http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-dev/2004-July/005544.html