ASTC Texture Compression May Finally Supplant S3TC

[phoronix]

Phoronix: ASTC Texture Compression May Finally Supplant S3TC

The days of the patent-riddled S3TC texture compression algorithm may finally be limited for new software...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ASTC-Supplant-S3TC-Tex-Compress

[yzsolt]

What's the current state of ASTC support in Mesa? Is it implemented for all drivers?

[caligula]

How do you know the patent will really expire and there are no submarine patents left?

[M@yeulC]

How does ASTC compares against S3TC, performance-wise? Are those compression methods hardware-enabled ?

[gigaplex]

How do you know the patent will really expire and there are no submarine patents left?

You can't really know there are no submarine patents for anything. There could be some that covers ASTC for example.

[Deavir]

How do you know the patent will really expire and there are no submarine patents left?

I would think Intel or AMD would have told people that they had to license another patent for that functionality. If not the patent holder is wasting a gold mine of fees they could be getting right now.

[Deavir]

I should also add 2017 is about the end of true submarine patents. The reforms in 1995 and 1999 made it so secret applications had to be released in 18 months and with a 20 year patent grant few were in the middle. The interesting fight will be for MP3 where we know there are submarine patents that might not be valid so the last real patent expires in Nov of this year if I recall correctly.

[caligula]

I should also add 2017 is about the end of true submarine patents. The reforms in 1995 and 1999 made it so secret applications had to be released in 18 months and with a 20 year patent grant few were in the middle. The interesting fight will be for MP3 where we know there are submarine patents that might not be valid so the last real patent expires in Nov of this year if I recall correctly.

I found these ones for MP3:

PATENT 5812672 1992/10/13 2015/09/22

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=5812672

PATENT 6185539 1997/02/19 2017/02/19

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6185539

PATENT 6009399 1997/04/16 2017/04/16

http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6009399

6023490 09 apr 1997 08 feb 2000 09 apr 1997 2017-04-09
5960037 09 apr 1997 28 sep 1999 09 apr 1997 2017-04-09
5878080 07 feb 1997 02 mar 1999 07 feb 1997 2017-02-07
5777992 07 jun 1995 07 jul 1998 01 jun 1990 2015-07-07
5991715 31 aug 1995 23 nov 1999 31 aug 1995 2015-08-31

US Patent #: 5,579,430
Application #: 08/380,135 (continuation of 07/768,239; abandoned)
Filed: January 26, 1995
Granted: November 26, 1996
Expires: November 26, 2016

US Patent #: 5,924,060
Application #: 08/821,007
Filed: August 29, 1997
Granted: July 13, 1999
Expires: August 29, 2017


US Patent #: 5,703,999
Application #: 08/751,456
Filed: November 18, 1996
Granted: December 30, 1997
Expires: December 30, 2017
or november 18, 2016?

[Deavir]

The MP3 spec was released before the patents were filed (release date plus 18 months). except the one that expires in Sept 2015. I would argue that by definition there was prior art or are illegal submarine patents from the 1995 reform. Either way they shouldn't be valid.

[caligula]

The MP3 spec was released before the patents were filed (release date plus 18 months). except the one that expires in Nov 2016. I would argue that by definition there was prior art or are illegal submarine patents from the 1995 reform. Either way they shouldn't be valid.

I'd say that Mp3 can be divided into patent free zones already in Oct 2015, in about one month. For example, while encoding might be patented, decoding might not be. How about mono decoding vs joint stereo? It seems many of these patents involve joining channels. I'm pretty sure 128-256 kbps CBR mono Mp3 playback is already 100% patent free. Although IANAL.