Re: [Fsfe-uk] BBC and the Dirac codec

[P.L.Hayes]

On Monday 31 May 2004 14:35, Nick wrote:
> It is sad the BBC felt they need to patent ideas in Dirac to protect
> Dirac from attack.

<Conspiracy theory>

Do you know where they've applied for these patents? I hope this isn't the 
reason they've never (afaik) reported anything about the European patent 
controversy. I don't really understand what is going on here; Is this work 
being done by the BBC or by BBC Technology Ltd:

The company will have six specialist business categories: 
...
 Consulting & Projects, creating media technology solutions;
...
 Kingswood Warren Ventures which has access to IPR from the source of many of 
the world’s most advanced broadcast technology developments.
...

Are these the people behind Dirac? Because what happens if the project is part 
of work done for a commission, of the kind say from Fox Digital, as mentioned 
in the document http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/news/news305.htm where I found the 
above partial description of the company?  Could circumstances arise in which 
the BBC (the Corporation) would be 'forced' to cede control over the patents 
- or perhaps they already don't really control them anyway? Perhaps BBC 
Technology Ltd. owns them. I'm no lawyer but the MPL looks pretty useless to 
me if someone else owns the patents to ideas expressed in the code covered by 
it. Does 2.1 (d) ii) mean what I think it means i.e. that under certain 
circumstances the Dirac library could sit on sourceforge for the next 20 
years with none but the patent holder being able to use it?

Is the BBC protecting Dirac from attack by corporate monopolists or is it 
instead trying to protect corporate investment in Dirac from possible future 
devaluation by people like those who are now creating it?

</Conspiracy theory>