wtf

I first asked how we should think about a mature standard like H.264 in 2026, where many but not all patents have expired. "Maturity changes the economic context, not the legal framework," he said. "The analysis shifts from an emerging innovation platform to a legacy but embedded infrastructure. That shift can affect valuation, but it does not nullify licensing obligations." Courts evaluating FRAND rates still look to comparable licenses and consider the composition, strength, and remaining life of the patents still in force.

It's possible in theory to use the free patents for x264, but it requires in practice a detailed claim-by-claim analysis of the relevant patents and the specific implementation. . Patent claims do not necessarily map neatly to profile labels, so determining whether a subset is truly non-infringing typically requires careful legal and technical analysis.

The baseline / main profiles is however OK and free to use, but the analysis is still required, because patent rights are strictly territorial. The infringement analysis typically turns on three factors: where encoding occurs, where content is transmitted from and where it is received or used.

The FAQ is also very interesting to learn about patents and software cases.