Penguin
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A large, once respected IT consulting company who nowadays seem to dwindle into irrelevance. Apparently they mostly recommend MicrosoftWindows solutions. They earned a huge notoriety with the computing world with their Submarine Patent on LZW compression. This patent is no longer an issue - it expired on Fri, Jun 20 2003.

The story goes thus..

In 1984, Terry Welch, working at Unisys, extended the LZ78 algorithm with a few simple ideas to make it simpler and more efficient. Following standard procedures, a patent was filed on this new algorithm dubbed LZW. However, it wasn't of any use to Unisys' core business, so they didn't have much interest in it and assured anyone who asked that they allowed free use of the algorithm. Fatally, none of this was ever formally put in contract. When CompuServe, a once large online service, were looking to make moving images across the typical 14k4 MoDems of those days easier, they decided to use this simple, elegant, and efficient algorithm in a new FileFormat for images which they dubbed GIF. The format gained popularity quickly and became the defacto standard for publishing images online. Years later, Unisys woke up to the fact that not only were a lot of people now using LZW, but that they were now actually dependent on it, as every other image on the web and then some were in GIF format. They realized that their patent on this Algorithm, being unavoidable as it had become, could make them a substantial amount of money from license fees. At this point, they decided to assert their ownership and cash in on the patent.

Their hypocrisy led to the creation of the PNG FileFormat to fill the niche GIF traditionally held. It also offers a lot of new capabilities. Most websites now prefer PNG over GIF files. However they have made a lasting impression on the computing world that goes far beyond image formats. People have become very careful to examine whether anything proposed as a new standard is covered by existing patents. OggVorbis is an example of another format that was designed specifically to avoid patented algorithms.


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