[p2p-hackers] Online Codes

[Nick Johnson]

On 22/02/2005, at 4:57 AM, Bryan Turner wrote:

>
>> So Online codes should be unencumbered, while Torrent / LT codes 
>> aren't?
>
> 	As far as I am aware, Digital Fountain owns all the patents to
> rateless codes currently in the literature.  This is dangerous 
> territory for
> open-source.  That makes Rateless.com's claims of an unencumbered 
> rateless
> code even more interesting.. their product documentation uses the words
> "Mixed Acyclic Decoder", which I cannot find any other references to 
> online.

Since infringing a patent requires meeting all the claims, it seems 
likely to me that Online Codes won't infringe Digital Fountain's 
patents. However, IANAPL.

On the plus side, I live in New Zealand, which doesn't recognize 
Software Patents (to the best of my knowledge). It'd be nice to be able 
to distribute anything I write to people in the US, though.

-Nick Johnson