The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has Finally Expired
The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has Expired
Today marks a historic milestone as the final MPEG-4 Part 2 patent, which remained active in Brazil, has officially expired. While US and EU patents lapsed years ago, this last barrier confirmed by the VIA Licensing Alliance means the widely used video format is now entirely free from patent restrictions. This development is a significant win for open-source software and multimedia developers worldwide.
"Great to see this day finally realized given the prevalence of MPEG-4."
HN discussion
- One commenter argues that patents and copyrights are explicitly designed to maximize societal progress through limited-term incentives rather than to extract maximum economic value for creators, citing the 'limited Times' clause in the Constitution and the existence of fair use.
- A counterargument asserts that the sole purpose of intellectual property laws is to grant authors and inventors exclusive rights to the economic fruits of their work, dismissing the societal benefit interpretation as laughable.
- Despite the expiration of H.264 patents, streaming services are criticized for prioritizing bandwidth over quality, delivering crushed blacks and smeared video even in 4K regardless of the underlying codec standards.
- Practitioners suggest that for audio, the Opus codec is superior to AAC-LC and can run efficiently on software for most devices, making hardware codec support largely unnecessary except for specific battery-constrained niches like Bluetooth headphones.
- H.264 is expected to maintain a long tail of relevance similar to JPEG and H.262 due to its massive existing deployment, compatibility requirements, and lower compute needs compared to newer alternatives.