MP3 Programming question

Hi all,

I'm working on a project that has me getting questioned about my
rights to use a technology.  I'm doing work using MP3 which I thought
was OK.  However, I am now getting told that Lucent claims to own the
rights to MP3 and I may have to stop what I am doing or pay heavy
licensing fees.  Is this right?  How can Lucent own MP3?

Does anyone out there know the history of development of MP3 or who
came up with it?  Maybe I can ask them if it's OK for me to work on my
project in this area.

Please contact me and let me know whatever information you can supply
so that I can figure out what action I need to take on my project.

Thanks

David Victor wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I'm working on a project that has me getting questioned about my
> rights to use a technology.  I'm doing work using MP3 which I thought
> was OK.  However, I am now getting told that Lucent claims to own the
> rights to MP3 and I may have to stop what I am doing or pay heavy
> licensing fees.  Is this right?  How can Lucent own MP3?

Actually, Fraunhofer seems to have the patents, and they have passed the
licensing off to Thomson. See http://www.mp3licensing.com/

> Does anyone out there know the history of development of MP3 or who
> came up with it?  Maybe I can ask them if it's OK for me to work on my
> project in this area.

http://www.mp3-tech.org/patents.html
http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/mp3-licensing.html
http://www.mp3licensing.com/mp3/history.html


> Please contact me and let me know whatever information you can supply
> so that I can figure out what action I need to take on my project.
>
> Thanks

--
Phil Frisbie, Jr.
Hawk Software
http://www.hawksoft.com