> To answer the first question, the existance of non-patent-emcumbered codecs, such as Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora, demonstrates that software patents don't need to exist for these things to exist.
This is an extremely bad example. Ogg Vorbis came years after rival standards (such as mp3). It is not state of the art at all.
The development of the basis of Theora (VP3) was done by a company (On2) that protected it with patents. VP3 was a very old decoder that On2 released (all of their current state of the art decoders are protected by patents).
This is an extremely bad example. Ogg Vorbis came years after rival standards (such as mp3). It is not state of the art at all.
The development of the basis of Theora (VP3) was done by a company (On2) that protected it with patents. VP3 was a very old decoder that On2 released (all of their current state of the art decoders are protected by patents).
There are actually patents on Theora but On2 granted a licence for its use (from WP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theora):
> On2 also made an irrevocable, royalty-free license grant for any patent claims it might have over the software and any derivatives
> To answer the second question, why would companies deserve patents?
The same reason as copyright – to protect innovation.