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The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has Expired

Hacker News Sunday 19 July 2026, 16:45 UTC By LorenDB 1 min read
Key Points

The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has Expired If you are looking for a reason to celebrate today, the last of the MPEG-4 Part 2 patents expired today. While the US and EU patents around MPEG-4 Part 2 expired in recent years, until today there remained one patent still active in Brazil. This final patent was BRPI0109962B1 - "process for storing and processing image information from successive images over time".

The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has Expired If you are looking for a reason to celebrate today, the last of the MPEG-4 Part 2 patents expired today. While the US and EU patents around MPEG-4 Part 2 expired in recent years, until today there remained one patent still active in Brazil. This final patent was BRPI0109962B1 - "process for storing and processing image information from successive images over time". The VIA Licensing Alliance confirmed that this was the final MPEG-4 Visual patent and indeed expiring today, 19 July 2026. Great to see this day finally realized given the prevalence of MPEG-4. While the US and EU patents around MPEG-4 Part 2 expired in recent years, until today there remained one patent still active in Brazil. This final patent was BRPI0109962B1 - "process for storing and processing image information from successive images over time". The VIA Licensing Alliance confirmed that this was the final MPEG-4 Visual patent and indeed expiring today, 19 July 2026. Great to see this day finally realized given the prevalence of MPEG-4.
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