LZW was claimed by Unisys for many years. It wasn't Ziv's fault, it wasn't even Welch's, but it does highlight that compression has historically been a garbage fire of patent harassment. I certainly think it has held the field back.
The patent harassment might even be a factor in the curiosity mentioned elsewhere in this thread, that a lot of practical progress in file compression has been published in a Russian web forum.
Comments
LZW was claimed by Unisys for many years. It wasn't Ziv's fault, it wasn't even Welch's, but it does highlight that compression has historically been a garbage fire of patent harassment. I certainly think it has held the field back.
The patent harassment might even be a factor in the curiosity mentioned elsewhere in this thread, that a lot of practical progress in file compression has been published in a Russian web forum.