On 8/14/2006 at 12:23 PM der Mouse wrote:
"The" patent? In what jurisdiction? I know
of one non-USA
jurisdiction in which LZW was patented (I read a copy of the patent at
a past job).
This is the relevant US Patent:
http://tinyurl.com/pd3qw
I find no online references to European patents, other than the note:
"...the equivalent patents in Europe and Japan expired on June 18 and June
20, 2004 respectively, with the Canadian patent following on July 7."
In any case, the LZW patent is now firmly ensconced in history and should
not be a reason to avoid a particular compressed format.
Cheers,
Chuck