A 25-Year-Old Brazilian Video Patent Just Expired, Ending a Lingering Legal Headache for Linux

A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

A Brazilian patent filed by Siemens AG in 2001, part of the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio, expired on July 19, 2026. This removes the last patent obstacle preventing MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid) from being patent-free worldwide. While the patent didn't significantly hinder Linux distributions—Fedora even shipped xvidcore in 2023—it did impose legal restrictions on royalty payments for MPEG-4 decoders and encoders in certain countries. The expiration marks the end of a minor but persistent legal issue for the open-source community, though modern video formats like H.264/AVC (MPEG-4 Part 10) remain under patent.