Oscar Trelles

Unisys’ GIF patent expired!

After years of having web authors and software developers going back and forth in the use of images in the GIF format, the patent that Unisys holds for the GIF and other LZW-based compression and decompression technologies expires today in the USA.

The following is an excerpt of what Unisys has to say in the subject, the complete document can be found here. Quote:

“After expiration of the U.S. LZW patent on June 20, 2003, liability for patent infringement will occur only if an infringing act with respect to a product or service (e.g., developing, selling, offering to sell, making, using, distributing, downloading, exporting and/or importing) occurs in a country where the LZW patent has not expired.”

Before, software developers had been required to sign a document like this one (CompuServe’s Official Gif License Agreement) to add support for the GIF compression format in their products.

However, Unisys holds patents valid for another year in other countries including Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy. No wonder this guys are still on.

Some more info about Unisys patents and LZW technologies is available here.