The last MPEG-2 patent has now expired in every single country in the world, according to this previous post:

viewtopic.php?t=201449#p1278465

Would it be possible for the next release of Raspberry Pi OS to include updated firmware that enables hardware decoding of MPEG-2 by default for the older pis?

Thank you

paulslocum3 wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 01, 2025 2:06 am

Would it be possible for the next release of Raspberry Pi OS to include updated firmware that enables hardware decoding of MPEG-2 by default for the older pis?

I'll ask, but I think it's not that simple.
My understanding was, the process of getting agreement to support an in-field licence key involved a new contract that is not tied to the lifespan of the MPEG-2 patent. We'd have to extract ourselves from that contract which may not be easy.

In my searches, I found:

As of January 3, 2024, MPEG-2 patents have expired worldwide, with the exception of only Malaysia, where the last patent is expected to expire in 2035.[30] The last US patent expired on February 23, 2018.[31][32]

and I couldn't see any news reports that the final patent had expired, so some additional confirmation that the "last MPEG-2 patent has expired" fact would be useful.

MPEG-LA has been superceded by Via-LA since Apr 2023 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via-LA
Via-LA's MPEG2 patent list is at https://www.via-la.com/wp-content/uploa ... ment-1.pdf

MY 141626-A expired yesterday.
AFAICT MY 163465-A and MY 177139-A are still live.

According to Google, all 3 were originally filed on almost the same day, but published in May 2010, Sept 2017, and Sept 2020 respectively. Goodness knows how that works, particularly as the Malaysian Government says that their patents expire after 20 years.

Someone else has concluded it is 2035 for MY177139-A in their investigations of this same question - https://bryanquigley.com/pages/mpeg2-pa ... acker.html
How they can allow the grant 25 years after the first filing date is a bit of a mystery to me. That would appear to give them licencing revenue for a considerably extended period.

Software Engineer at Raspberry Pi Ltd. Views expressed are still personal views.
I'm not interested in doing contracts for bespoke functionality - please don't ask.

6by9 wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 01, 2025 2:09 pm

According to Google, all 3 were originally filed on almost the same day, but published in May 2010, Sept 2017, and Sept 2020 respectively.

Google only shows the date of the original parent patent.

If you do "patent search" on the site of the Malaysian office and search for "SYNCHRONIZATION ARRANGEMENT FOR A COMPRESSED VIDEO SIGNAL" you'll see they filled the same stuff 4 times in 2001, 2006, 2015, 2017 as "divisional patents" of the 1994 parent patent "DIFFERENTIAL TIME CODE METHOD AND APPARATUS AS FOR A COMPRESSED VIDEO SIGNAL"

Goodness knows how that works, particularly as the Malaysian Government says that their patents expire after 20 years.

The info on the WIPO site for Malaysia mentions it used to be 20 years from filling or 15 years from grant whatever is longer, before 2001.

So I guess they both managed to convince the patent office to rubber stamp their newer applications and convince them the old rules should still
apply in this particular case.
2017 application granted in 2020 + 15 years, does indeed is 2035.