LZW compression patent

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Article #74415

#74415

From: Dave Sill
Date: Fri, 03 May 1991 13:24

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What exactly does the Unisys patent cover?  Presumably, compression
using LZW is protected.  How about the format of compressed files?  (I
believe someone's said this is not covered but is so dependent on the
compression algorithm that uncoupling the two is nearly impossible.)

How about uncompression, though?  The concern is that if Unisys were
to enforce its patent against compress/uncompress/zcat, would there be
a danger of not being able to uncompress previously compressed files?

What is FSF's migration strategy wrt compress?  I notice they're still
distributing compress and compressed files on prep, and hence are
liable to charges of patent infringement.  Is yabba/unyabba going to
replace compress?

-- 
Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov)	  It will be a great day when our schools have
Martin Marietta Energy Systems    all the money they need and the Air Force
Workstation Support               has to hold a bake sale to buy a new bomber.

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Message-ID: <1991May3.132441.20468@cs.utk.edu>

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From: de5@ornl.gov (Dave Sill)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: LZW compression patent
Message-ID: <1991May3.132441.20468@cs.utk.edu>
Date: 3 May 91 13:24:41 GMT
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