Patent Licensing Problems in the US

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It's nice that the texture tools have been released under the MIT license,
but it looks like US citizens can't legally use it. The patent on block
compression(S3TC) won't expire until 2017 and the MIT license doesn't grant
me(or other users) any use of the S3TC patent. Simon Brown isn't located in
the USA, so the patent doesn't apply to him. I've wanted to use Simon
Brown's library many times, but alas, it would be illegal to compile it in
the USA without separately licensing the S3TC patent...

US S3TC Patent
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1
&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=5956431.PN.&OS=PN/5956431&RS=PN/5956431

I know NVidia has a license for the S3TC patent, but unless NVidia is
sub-licensing the S3TC patent along with the code, it appears this can't be
used by US citizens.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by gabebear@gmail.com on 15 Jun 2007 at 1:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Is NVIDIA sub-licensing the S3TC patent? If not, is there a cost associated 
with this
license or is it just about obtaining permission. For that matter, we'd all 
have to
have this license to use the D3DX libs as well, correct?

Original comment by ae.pas...@gmail.com on 20 Jun 2007 at 5:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

NVIDIA has a license of the S3TC patent that covers all our products, including 
our
Texture Tools. You don't have to obtain a license of the S3TC patent to use any 
of
NVIDIA's products, but certain uses of NVIDIA Texture Tools source code cannot 
be
considered NVIDIA products anymore. Keep in mind that the NVIDIA Texture Tools 
are
licensed under the MIT license and thus are provided without warranty of any 
kind.

Original comment by cast...@gmail.com on 1 Aug 2007 at 10:03

• Changed state: WontFix

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I've added this information to the FAQ too.

Original comment by cast...@gmail.com on 1 Aug 2007 at 10:11