They're claiming patent infgringement by snapchat over various compression methods used in the AV1 specParticularly, they said: >“[AV1 and HEVC] are ‘based on the same hybrid block-based video-coding flow’ and employ nearly the same approach to dividing images into coding units… and blocks,”So... are they gonna sue every platform that dare touch any modern image/video codec since they all use variable sized blocks?https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/av1s-open-royalty-free-promise-in-question-as-dolby-sues-snapchat-over-codec/
>>108469545>>>So... are they gonna sue every platform that dare touch any modern image/video codec since they all use variable sized blocks?Ah you must not know Dolby. The answer is yes btw. Of course the lawsuits all stop once they pony up the license money and settle.
>>108469545>nearly the same>nearly*laughs in legalese*
Patent trolling companies are about as ridiculous as cooks saying you can't make fries the way they do because they invented frying fries the way they do so it's theirs. It's weird that the whole thing is taken seriously. I wrote a class with a <T> value field and corresponding getter, don't you dare have the same because I invented this!
rothschild sued valve because they claim to have patented downloadable games in 2014 because clearly nobody had ever downloaded a game prior to thatare you just realizing that the modern patent system is bullshit designed to benefit patent trolls?
>>108469545>So... are they gonna sue every platform that dare touch any modern image/video codec since they all use variable sized blocks?No, only the ones that make enough money.It's basically giant companies trading money back and forth for the sport of it.
Burning money by the shovelful to have the world's most expensive lawyers send emails to each other is the American way. Are you a communist or something?
Hate the game not the player
Dolby hasn't created anything meaninful since AC-3.
>>108469685you can hate both, and those that made it too.
>>108469545All container formats and sliding window algorithms since 1926 are most likely infringing on my 100-year-old grandfather's 'High-Speed Colon Defecation' model. Even Claude Opus does not redeem the dispute. Please check the patents and do not redeem the codebase. This is a very serious violation of my family's intellectual property, sirs.
>>108469545Turns out just saying you are patent-free doesn't necessarily mean that you are patent-free.
>>108470232>what is Dolby Vision
>>108471398I think I'm getting itYes I'll settle, which of course means get fucked we'll never settle
The last good and relevant product Dolby has made was Dolby Stereo SR. Dolby Digital is overrated and these days 7.1 PCM is probably a lot better.
>>108469545Dolby can eat shit if they think they're going after everyone for a fat payout. It's not like video codecs are the black magic they used to be.
>>108471402Pointless proprietary piece of shit. As is Atmos.
patents are rent-seeking and need to be abolished
>>1084695902014? they were about 30 years too late to complain about thatthat said, i've seen stories of trolls patenting something people already do/use, then sue the existing stuff. the patent system is shit
someone should slopfork and mit it
>>108471679This isn't about copyright.
>>108471402kneejerk reaction to hdr
>>108471694i'm sure if you burn enough tokens you can anti-patent a sloplimentation
>>108471750Any implementation of the patented techniques would be covered by the same patents.
>>108471665The patent office's moto is literally "we're here to grant patents". It's beyond retarded what they'll grant.https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/01/great-moments-in-patents-all-skeletons-are-bastards/
>>108469545Dolby waited too long before suing.If they sued in 2020-22 this mightve worked, but in 2026 when 70% of YouTube traffic is AV1 and 30% of Netflix? Good fucking luck dolby. Google can probably outspend Dolby 10x over every quarter.Hell im pretty sure Google has just in the last year or two spent more money on lawyers than Dolby has had in total cash flow during that same period.Dolby might scare Snapchat, but they're not scaring the big fish who built and primarily use AV1.
>>108469560didn't valve recently set a precedent against anti-patent trolls? is this related?
I hope they all go to court and then the Alliance for Open Media defends their own intellectual property.
>>108471398They're basically arguing the math they used for chroma to luma calculations is patented.The problem for dolby is the mathematical concepts were being discussed academically since the early 2000s, and in the early Daala codec mailing lists around 2009.Dolby didn't patent anything until 2012-14, and they were ring fencing patents just designed to broadly assert ownership over a general process.There is clear proof that the concept they patented was known and developed before their patent was filed.
>>108469545The AOMedia patent license non-litigation clause means Dolby royally fucked themselves. If they ever hope to use AV1 themselves they'll have to negotiate patent licenses separately and are no longer covered under the royalty free arrangement.
>>108471875I mean, the nuclear option is all of the AOM members tell dolby they're no longer allowed to use ANY of their patents, not just the AV1 ones.
VVChads where we at?
>> 108471958>paywalling math is good actually
>>108471958still waiting on royalty money nobody will pay for bro any day now bro amazon won't be the only suckers one day people that don't need 2 day shipping will care about us bro
>>108471958tel aviv
>>108469545I didn't even know dolby still existed, but it makes sense that they would be a patent troll company now.
>>108472343They have ~$1.3B in yearly revenue, it's just almost all of that comes from their licensing, and at the moment most of their patents are for standards that are older and being phased out, and the new standards being introduced are largely royalty free, like AV1. And the specialist areas where Dolby was still earning money, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, are now competing with similar open standards (Eclipsa Audio based on the open source Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF) standard, and HDR10+) which are being adopted quickly by comparison (no royalty fees will do that). Dolby likely identified that AV1 was using "their" patent back in 2018-2020, or even earlier, but elected not to pursue enforcement because it could cause AOMedia to change AV1 to remove the Dolby patented math.So Dolby waited until AV1 was an entrenched standard that had wide adoption across the industry and had hardware support BEFORE they decided to sue anyone over it.Their hope is that Snapchat will settle and pay a small royalty fee in perpetuity that Dolby can then use as precedent to go after all the other small/medium businesses using AV1. Though as another anon noted, Google/Netflix/etc are far too entrenched now to give up without a fight, and they can afford a lot more lawyers than Dolby can, so I don't see this going well for Dolby in the long run.
>>108472394>Though as another anon noted, Google/Netflix/etc are far too entrenched now to give up without a fight, and they can afford a lot more lawyers than Dolby can, so I don't see this going well for Dolby in the long run.God I hope they bankrupt the company. It feels weird to root for Google et al but shit like this needs to die.
>>108472435Samsung, Apple, Nvidia, Intel, Oppo, AMD, Broadcom, LG, Oppo, and Realtek are all hardware vendors who are members (or founders) of the AOMedia group. I'm pretty sure if they all came forward and told Dolby they would immediately remove support for existing Dolby Codecs, they'd back off. But that would be a "nuclear" option.
>>108471835Where'd you get 70% of YouTube traffic from? Nearly every video is still vp9.
>>108469560>>108469545Dolby is owned by Razer fyi
>>108472488Where are you? I've had AV1 exclusively for months.
>>108471807i hate that faggot so much even if he's right
>>108472488It depends on the region you're in, but it's at least 50% of youtube at this point.> YouTube has reached around 50% AV1 usage, with Netflix using it for 30% of its streams and Meta reporting over 70% of its global watch time in early 2026 was using AV1.
>>108472489No, Razer owns THX.And THX is an AOM member, so they're not going to sue anyone who uses AV1.Dolby isn't owned by any corporate entity.
>>108469545>patent infgringement by snapchatoh good, it is cancer
>>108472533> is an AOM member, so they're not going to sue anyone who uses AV1.>What is Rambus vs. JEDEC
>>108472533>AOM memberqrd
>>108472568AOM has a clause where if anyone in the group tries to fuck with anyone else in the group, they're no longer allowed to use AV1.>>108472579Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia) or AOM, is a group of companies who got together to make an open-source royalty free video codec, AV1.THX is a paying member of that consortium.
>>108469545Software patents were a mistake
>>108472645illegal in eu, even if some jurisdictions try to pretend otherwise, like that judge in germany, and most of the world actually
>>108469545Life imitates art.
>>108471865Let's hope they can get some precedent in court making AV1 provably free to use.
>>108475139What a retarded comic.
>Freetards push their shitty codec because it's "LE FREE">In reality it isn't actually free and HEVC/VVC were better anywaykekfreetards can't stop taking L's
>>108469545no way patents in general and other jewishness are a net positive at this point
>>108469560I think it's just cheaper to kill everyone at dolby
>>108475471>at this point'member Aureal?'member Carmack's reverse?
Dolby waited for the perfect Goldilocks company to come along to launch this lmao. Big enough to sue for real money but small enough to actually win. Crickets when it came to Goole, Apple, Amazon, Netflix etc but Snapchat? Hello Lawsuit.Snapchat should have seen it coming, they can only hope these other companies care enough to pay attention to this shit and help them win too. Good Luck, Dolby has clearly been prepping this nuke for fucking years.
>>108475551The issue is, Google, Netflix, etc have vested interests in keeping it royalty free, even for smaller companies.Also the AOMedia group has a legal defense war chest EXACTLY for this scenario, so even if Snapchat doesn't want to pay a single cent to defend themselves, AOMedia might decide to fight the legal battle for them regardless.
>>108475551It's not about being able to win, it's that Google et al actually has its own patents that would allow them to gatekeep AV1 if they are challenged.Snapchat doesn't have any stakes IIRC.It's not just Dolby being faggots. A guy pictured here is literally the face of a video codec Mafia.
>>108475608Sounds like communism, hopefully the judge doesn't allow it
>>108475640"allow" what?Business consortiums having combined legal defense funds has been a thing for decades, if not centuries.
>>108475608What if Snapchat don't want to and just say fuck it we'll pay whatever license leave us alone
>>108475652That's unfortunately a very possible outcome for those who aren't equipped with the best lawyers.But those with guts can also do some great stuff. See the patent troll who challenged Valve and got BTFO. His surname even fuels the schadenfreude.
>>108475652Well they'd be pissing off MUCH bigger companies, so I don't see why they WOULD. But even if they did, google, netflix, samsung, etc can still fight Dolby quite effectively. It just makes it more likely smaller companies will get bullied into paying if Snap capitulates with zero fight at all.
>>108475551the big companies can't afford a precedent against av1, they will fight it
>On August 19, 2024, we acquired 100% of the issued and outstanding equity interests of GE Intellectual Property Licensing, LLC and GE Technology Development, Inc.These are all patents that they bought recently.
>>108476368makes me think of that clip where a dog walks past someone, hops through a gate and immediately starts barking at the same person because it's on the other side of a gate
>>108469545Holy based. Fuck Google.
>>108475551Wouldn't Snap be able to dodge the lawsuit if they drop AV1 and change their encoder to HEVC?
>>108476550>woudln't they just avoid paying Dolby by paying Dolby?are you dumb?
>>108469586nah get fucked. you don't get to just tell everyone who's been working on codecs for decades under the patent framework to fuck off just because you're google. you're not even paying for any of this. kys simp you will never be a googler
>>108475639biggest google simp on the board. you would shill avif if you weren't so fragile that you don't want your feelings hurt doing it on /g/.
>>108476637Ever notice how he took a name that seems to be pro jpeg xl yet all he ever talks about is av1?
>>108469590I'll never forget in 2015 (I think.) Myriad Genetics pattented the human genome and actually took civil cases to court over it.
>>108469545Wouldn't you be able to get these type of patents thrown out due to being unchallenged for so long that it has become commonplace? A bit like trademarks losing their protection if the name becomes commonplace?
>>108476634Yes, yes we can. Good luck in court ig.
>>108471398AV1 is royalty free, not patent free
>>108477488you will never be a googler
>>108476553According to OP's article Snap already licensed HEVC, Dolby is just trying to double dip by charging them for AV1 too
>>108477463They're within the statue of limitations, though it could be an argument the judge takes into account.
>>108472533>OuyaFucking kek, I forgot about those dumbasses.
>>108475551>they can only hope these other companies care enough to pay attention to this shit and help them win tooThey're obliged to. A core part of the founding of the group was that it would defend any member facing patent trolling.>Established the AOMedia patent defense program to help protect AV1 ecosystem participants in the event of patent claims.https://aomedia.org/press%20releases/the-alliance-for-open-media-statement/Dolby has bitten off more than they can chew here, but you never know how things will go with Shartistan's retarded legal system. They're asking for a jury trial, so the plan is likely to hope a bunch of retards who don't understand anything that's being said in court side with them regardless of how shitty their case is.
>>108471854kek no, valve had already paid for a perpetual license when they got sued
>>108469586This. The very notion of locking ideas down is ridiculous. Guess what bitch, I used my own brain to think the same thoughts that you did. What are you gonna do, lobotomize me?
>>108469545Cool so AV1 is dead.>inb4 delusional bullshitNo one is going to bet on AV1 support when this shit is happening. Aborted after being born. Rough.
>>108478624Lol are you retarded?Like genuinely.Dolby is a tiny minnow compared to AOMedia. They picked one if the smaller members, but they have a mutual legal defense fund.
