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File formats - Question about ownership.

by Stefan Lundmark · in General Discussion · 11/19/2004 (1:05 pm) · 7 replies

I've added MPQ support to our project and I wonder if anyone knows if this violates any laws?

I've read on different places (can't remember which ones though) that file formats can't be owned or copyrighted/trademarked.

MPQ was first made by Blizzard 1996 and I recently heard that Matthew Fairfax withdrawn his plans for the Unreal Map implementation into Torque because Epic said he would get into trouble.

This leads me to believe that file formats are indeed a property of their owners.

Any thoughts? I'm not using their tools to produce the files, I'm using my owns which I've coded.
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Torque Owner Gonzo T. Clown
#1
11/19/2004 (1:16 pm)
Stefan, the file format is owned by the originator of the file.


Take a gander at this... Format Info



And here's a quote that pretty well sums it up...

Quote:If we open a new Microsoft Word document and save it without adding any data, we produce a file in the .doc format. Apart possibly from the file name just about everything in that file belongs to Microsoft, since the .doc file format is proprietary to Microsoft.

Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#2
11/19/2004 (1:25 pm)
Ah, darn. Thanks a bunch.

Torque Owner Dave Heil
#3
11/19/2004 (3:21 pm)
If you read the replies to the article quoted, you will see several people who do not agree with the original article and, quite frankly, their arguments make more sense. I guess the think to take away from this is that, "it depends". If you use Word as an example like the author above did, you will find that Word can read/write Wordperfect documents. Is Microsoft violating copyright and intellectual property law? Did they obtain a license from the makers of Wordperfect? My guess would be that the answer is "no" to both those questions.

Torque Owner Mz
#4
11/19/2004 (3:21 pm)
Quote:the file format is owned by the originator of the file

Only if there are patent entanglements. That would probably separate Microsoft word format (very patent heavy) from most game formats.

Torque Owner Will Harrison
#5
11/19/2004 (4:10 pm)
"The most useful part of intellectual property law for protecting ownership of a file format appears to be patent law. Although patents for file formats are not directly permitted under US law, some formats require the encoding of data with patented algorithms. For example, the GIF file format requires the use of a patented algorithm, and although initially the patent owner did not enforce it, they later began collecting fees for use of the algorithm. This has resulted in a significant decrease in the use of GIFs, and is partly responsible for the development of the alternative PNG format. However, the patent expired in the US in mid-2003, worldwide in mid-2004; algorithms are themselves not currently patentable under European law."

-- Wikipedia

Torque Owner Alexandre Harvey-Tremblay
#6
11/19/2004 (4:24 pm)
"algorithms are themselves not currently patentable under European law."

This is true up to the point that a mechanical or electrical system that uses these algorithms can be patented.

Torque Owner Stefan Lundmark
#7
11/19/2004 (4:59 pm)
Interesting.. so it's probably an case to case thing.