About GIF/TIFF-LZW images
Top Page English Japanese Products list .PictureMoreZ .PE-MUZ .Picture ExhibitorZ .PE-CD .Net Correct Registration method What are sharewares ? See the page of each software. Oscar Creation Contact Us Link to Oscar Creation Affiliates	Recently, there are many questions posed such as "Why does the GIF that is used by the software from Oscar Creation does not patent to an infringement right?". The reply is as follows: UNISYS Corporation acquires a patent to the compression/un-compression algorithm LZW used with the GIF image and the TIFF-LZW image. Therefore, except when the software you're using or you have a LZW patent license agreement with UNISYS Corporation, the use of those images becomes patented to an infringement. And, as for whether the developer (sale company) of the software and the software has a LZW patent license agreement, there are no relations in the kind such as marketing software, a shareware and a freeware. If you are unsure as for whether the developer (sale company) of the software or whether the software has a LZW patent license agreement, you should contact the developer (sale company) of the software for your personal safety. LZW ( Lempel Ziv Welch ) The data compression expansion technology that UNISYS Corporation acquires a patent. The United States of America patent number 4,558,302, a Japanese patent number 2,123,602, 2,610,084 and the patent of Canada, France, Germany, Italy and England. The famous capabilities which LZW used for is in such cases as GIF, TIFF-LZW, PostScript, PDF Link to WEB-site Japanese English Oscar Creation has the LZW patent license agreement for both GIF and TIFF-LZW with UNISYS Corporation. Therefore, the registration user of the software of Oscar Creation can use it without the infringement of the patent. But, when you are trying the software of Oscar Creation, you don't pay the LZW patent license fee for the both GIF and the TIFF-LZW yet. Therefore, when both GIF and TIFF-LZW images was made by the software, the following actions becomes infringement on a patent during the trial period. The action of using images on the WEB-site The action of distributing images to a third party. P.S. 2003/6/20 The patent expired in USA. 2004/6/18 The patent expired in Europe. 2004/6/20 The patent expired in Japan. 2004/7/7 The patent expired in Canada.