On Thu, 16 Dec 1999 06:58:44 -0500, Steve Martin <sma### [at] usitnet>
wrote:

>> Unisys' claims are fairly extensive, but many in the field believe that their
>> patent only applies to creation, not to using. Thus, viewing GIF might be fine
>> even though you need a license from them to create them.
>
>That was always my understanding, too. However, if you read their web
>site
>statement carefully, it gives rise to doubt. Here's an excerpt:
>
>  "In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed by
>  an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for
>  all use, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called
> "freeware") and/or hardware providing LZW conversion capability
> (for example, downloaded software used for creating/displaying GIF
>images)."
>
>This would seem to indicate that Unisys expects one to get a license to
>use any piece of software that displays GIFs. That would include every
>Netscape and Internet Explorer user as well as the guy who buys and
>uses Adobe Photoshop and the like. How about the GIMP project? Do they
>have a license from Unisys? How about the users of GIMP? Do they need
>one?
>
>One would think that the developer of a piece of software would be
>responsible for getting the license, and that the user wouldn't be
>required to do so. However, this is also addressed by the Unisys
>statement:
>
>  "Microsoft Corporation obtained a license under the above Unisys LZW
>  patents in September, 1996. Microsoft's license does NOT extend to
>  software developers or third parties who use Microsoft toolkit,
>language,
>  development or operating system products to provide GIF read/write
>and/or
>  any other LZW capabilities in their own products (e.g., by way of DLLs
>and
>  APIs). The complete statement by Microsoft can be found at Microsoft's
>  developer-oriented Web site at
>http://www.microsoft.com/DEVONLY/Unisys.htm.
>  Software developers and third parties who wish to include Microsoft
>toolkit,
>  language, development or operating system products in their own
>products for
>  providing GIF or any other LZW capability should contact Unisys for a
>  license as instructed below. "
>
>The way this reads, even though Microsoft got a license to implement
>DLLs
>that provide LZW services, the developer who uses Microsoft's pre-built
>DLLs in their projects are *not* covered.
>
>It seems to me that this whole thing is an attempt on the part of some
>lawyers
>at Unisys to cash in on the Web, to the detriment of its users. Reminds
>me of
>the guy who went to the US Trademark office and registered himself a
>trademark
>on the term "Linux". He then went to everyone who was using the term
>(book
>publishers, software retailers, outfits like Red Hat and Debian, and so
>forth) and tried to extort license fees from them for the use of his
>"proprietary trademark". He was unjustified, of course, and finally
>(under pressure from lawyers and several others) relinquished
>his rights to the term "Linux".

Hey, wait a moment!

Extracted from Infozip's COPYING (related with zip files):


   There are no known patents on any of the code in UnZip.  Unisys
   claims a patent on LZW encoding and on LZW decoding _in an
apparatus
   that performs LZW encoding_, but the patent appears to exempt a
stand-
   alone decoder (as in UnZip's unshrink.c).  Unisys has publicly
claimed
   otherwise, but the issue has never been tested in court.  Since
this
   point is unclear, unshrinking is not enabled by default.  It is the
   responsibility of the user to make his or her peace with Unisys and
   its licensing requirements.  (unshrink.c may be removed from future
   releases altogether.)

From that information, I assume than if the zip package is picked, and
removed all references to unshrink.c, there are no problems with LZW,
and in consequence, with Unisys.

And

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