Compression method patent? Or a way to profit?

[Trench]

As stated on wikipedia
"GIF images are compressed using the Lempel–Ziv–Welch (LZW) lossless data compression technique to reduce the file size without degrading the visual quality. This compression technique was patented in 1985. Controversy over the licensing agreement between the software patent holder, Unisys, and CompuServe in 1994 spurred the development of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) standard. By 2004 all the relevant patents had expired."

"Welch filed a patent application for the LZW method in June 1983. The resulting patent, US 4558302, granted in December 1985""when the patent was granted, Unisys entered into licensing agreements with over a hundred companies"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF

Did they make money? can you if you did the same? if its a small difference no but if its a big maybe?
"In January 2016, Telegram started re-encoding all GIFs to MPEG4 videos that "require up to 95% less disk space for the same image quality."
well mpeg4 doesnt seem as convenient or as fast. A bigger hard drive you can buy easier than time.


In other fiends some people creates things and big companies pay them million to buy the patent and the company never sells the thing they buy since more money to be made in the thing they have.

But other programs say free to use for public use but must pay if corporation. And some use the honor system while others give a free demo for a free days are tries only or 1 time daily.

So many questions arise and more which a few are.
Now is their a legal form one must fill out to get the assurances?
Even if you do make something wont it hurt others to try to improve it?
How long will the patent or payment last?
Would it be better to not have a patent and keep ti secret for personal use?
If you do make money will you use the money to make something else better or just screw everyone else like all rich which make money got to their head to destroy nations for their ego?

You cant make money giving money away. and you cant go forward if you spend your time to make some thing good and cant afford to feed yourself. if Nikola Tesla made money or had plenty of money more things would have been done. Let's say you are smart and can make money if your dont have money no matter how smart you are. Unless you are smart enough to make money and connections which make the world go round then maybe you can influence the world in one thought. while others think they can influence with just ideas.

As Christ said about watching out for "CASTING PEARLS BEFORE. SWINE Matthew 7:1-6"
But a lot of things in the bible were stated by the ancient Greeks and everything people have now as well. But many push away who they came with the dance with to dance with another and then wonder why it was not so good in the end.

In Ancient Greece only the rich paid taxes IF they wanted to. And many wanted to pay taxes to help their fellow man and to help their status and business as well. But the rich mainly went to war too.
Now its backwards for poor die for the rich, the non rich pay the most taxes, the rich want to give as little and when they give its for tax breaks, the rich get tax money for their business. People seem to give praise to some rich despite they are ripping them off. Maybe the masses like to be ripped off and the rich give them what they want since people are conditioned to be that way. And the Rich will get richer and only focus on money and if you feel you are morally right and give things away for free then dont blame them if they profit off you. You can only blame yourself.

I am not saying dont give things away I am saying dont hurt yourself and others. Play it smart since if you are smart enough to make something find someone else smart enough to protect you. But dont hurt the masses that can benefit from your idea.

Kind of all those big tech companies getting rich by you using their product since they make money with people going on the site. you can be part of the problem if you disagree with them. Sure they will make their money without you but the mentality of the masses is the issue. Which maybe that can never change but maybe your help to use their tactics against them if you have the capability. Maybe resistance is futile and give up everything.
As the Ancient Greeks said leisure time is used to learn something new.

[Trench]

US patent gave 2 patents for random compression which are
Patent 5,488,364 on compression of random data (Expired 2000 FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES)
Patent 5,533,051 on compression of random data (Expired 2008 FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES)
https://www.uspto.gov
Oddly you cant get a patent for a formula but a copyright?


I am surprised the Us patent office gave them a patent. Maybe cause its a racket to take money?
If KFC patented their secret ingredients they might be out of Business.


but the issue is do they work?


one site says they believe that its bs despite they got a patent. It didn't seem clear anyway how they wanted to implement it.
http://gailly.net/05533051.html
and http://gailly.net/05488364.html


decription of one of them
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5488364.html


​on another note top storage companies
Western digital gross profit 3,163,000 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/WDC/financials?p=WDC


Seagate gross profit 2,842,000 https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/STX/financials?p=STX
in short very little.So not like those companies can afford to pay you if you have something.

[JamesWasil]

Oddly you cant get a patent for a formula but a copyright?

I have often wondered about this. Let's suppose you have something ready for the world and ready for the market. Is it better to have a patent, a patent pending, or a copyright on it considering the semantic restrictions and red tape on works now for you to retain your rights to it?

[Trench]

Copyright is for Software which deals with the actual code.Patent for the original code function (which not likely to be given).
Trademark for the brand if you want to promote it
Which one may need to use all 3.

A pending application may is not good since it can be rejected. But if it is not rejected and still pending then it might be as good in the copyright unless the state or country says otherwise.


In short it gets confusing which many attorneys that know the law will have a hard enough time trying to understand what the client wants to present. LOL These are Just examples and a official legal answer is a better choice depending on the thing to be registered.