by Markus Kuhn
For many years, the doubts about the patent situation have prevented the JBIG1 standard from becoming widely used on the Internet (e.g., not a single web browser has support for it integrated). As the author of a freely available JBIG1 implementation, I'm investigating the current patent license requirements for the JBIG1 standard, and this page summarizes what I have found out so far.
Annex E of the JBIG1 standard (ITU-T Recommendation T.82(1993) and International Standard ISO/IEC 1154 4:1993), lists the following patents and says that a license for these might be required to implement the standard:
| Owner | Title | Number | publication date | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | A method and means for pipeline decoding of the high to low order pairwise combined digits of a decodable set of relatively shifted finite number of strings | US 4295125 | 1981-10-13 | |
| IBM | A method and means for carry-over control in a high order to low order combining of digits of a decodable set of relatively shifted finite number strings | US 4463342 | 1984-07-31 | |
| IBM | High-speed arithmetic compression using concurrent value updating | US 4467317 | 1984-08-21 | |
| IBM | Method and means for arithmetic coding using a reduced number of operations | US 4286256 | 1981-08-25 | |
| IBM | A multiplication-free multi-alphabet arithmetic code | US 4652856 | 1986-02-04 | |
| IBM | Symmetrical adaptive data compression/decompression system | US 4633490 | 1986-12-30 | |
| IBM | Arithmetic coding data compression/de-compression by selectively employed, diverse arithmetic encoders and decoders | US 4891643 | 1990-01-02 | |
| IBM | System for compression bi-level data | US 4901363 | 1990-02-13 | |
| IBM | Arithmetic coding encoder and decoder system | US 4905297 | 1990-02-27 | |
| IBM | Probability adaptation for arithmetic coders | US 4935882 | 1990-06-19 | |
| IBM | Probability adaptation for arithmetic coders | US 5099440 | 1992-03-24 | |
| IBM | Method and apparatus for processing pel signals of an image | US 4982292 | 1991-01-01 | |
| AT&T | Progressive transmission of high resolution two-tone facsimile images | US 4870497 | 1989-09-26 | |
| AT&T | Edge decomposition for the transmission of high resolution facsimile images | US 4873577 | 1989-10-10 | |
| AT&T | Adaptive probability estimator for entropy encoder/decoder | US 5025258 | 1991-06-18 | |
| AT&T | Efficient encoding/decoding in the decomposition and recomposition of a high resolution image utilizing its low resolution replica | US 4979049 | 1990-12-18 | |
| AT&T | Efficient encoding/decoding in the decomposition and recomposition of a high resolution image utilizing pixel clusters | US 5031053 | 1991-07-09 | |
| AT&T | Entropy encoder/decoder including a context extractor | US 5023611 | 1991-06-11 | |
| AT&T | Method and apparatus for carry-over control in arithmetic entropy coding | US 4973961 | 1990-11-27 | |
| KDD | Methods for reduced-sized images | JP Appl. 63-212 432 | 1990-03-02 | JP 02-062164 |
| KDD | Image reduction system | JP Appl. 1-167 033 | pending | joint with Canon |
| Mitsubishi | Facsimile encoding communication system | JP 1251403 | 1984-07-06 | wrong number? |
| Mitsubishi | Encoding method | pending | ||
| Canon | Image reduction system | JP Appl. 1-167 033 | pending | joint with KDD |
The owners of the above patents have filed with the ISO and ITU a statement of willingness to grant a license under these rights on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to applications desiring to obtain such a license. These statements are recorded in the ITU Patents Database.
JBIG-KIT comes without any patent licence. I do not know for sure, which patents still affect which use of JBIG in which country (most of the ones listed have already expired anyway). The most important patents are the ones owned by IBM on the QM coder. Some of the other patents can be avoided by disabling progressive coding. In some countries, non-commercial and research use of patented ideas does not require a license anyway.
Annex E of JBIG1 also provides contact addresses for patent information:
Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (formerly CCITT) International Telecommunication Union Place des Nations CH-1211 Genève 20 Switzerland Tel: +41 (22) 730 5111 Fax: +41 (22) 730 5853 ITTF International Organization for Standardization 1, rue de Varembé CH-1211 Genève 20 Switzerland Tel: +41 (22) 734 0150 Fax: +41 (22) 733 3843 Program Manager Licensing Intellectual Property and Licensing Services IBM Corporation 208 Harbor Drive P.O. Box 10501 Stamford, Connecticut 08904-2501 Tel: +1 (203) 973 7935 Fax: +1 (203) 973 7981 or +1 (203) 973 7982 Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Intellectual Property License Department 1-2-3 Morunouchi, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 100 Japan Tel: +81 (3) 3218 3465 Fax: +81 (3) 3215 3842 International Affairs Department Kokusai Denshin Denwa Co. Ltd. 3-2 Nishishinjuku 2-chome Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 163 Japan Tel: +81 (3) 3347 6457 Tel: +81 (3) 3347 6470 AT&T Intellectual Property Division Manager Room 3A21 10 Independence Blvd. Warren, NJ 07059 USA Tel: +1 (908) 580 5392 Fax: +1 (908) 580 6355 Senior General Manager Corporate Intellectual Property and Legal Headquarters Canon Inc. 30-2 Shimomaruko 3-chome Ohta-ku, Tokyo 146 Japan Tel: +81 (3) 3758 2111 Fax: +81 (3) 3756 0947
Information received from these so far:
I recently read with great interest in Annex I of the final draft for JBIG2 (ISO/IEC FCD 14492, ITU-T T.88) that IBM has agreed to license the arithmetic encoding patents free of charge to JBIG2 implementors. Apparently, the IBM IPR statement provided for JPEG2000 (ISO/IEC 15444 and ITU-T T.800) and JBIG2 allowed no-royalty use of the patents on a certain list for "any WG1 standard", which refers to the ISO/IEC working group that comprises both JBIG and JPEG. It's possible that this means that IBM will allow royalty-free use of the patents on that list for JBIG1 as well, but I don't know yet whether that has been the intention or effect.
I hope that this waiver therefore can also be applied to JBIG1 implementations, as I would love to be able to add to the documentation of my package a statement saying that its use will not require a patent license (or at least not for the non-progressive modes). I am still struggling to find a competent source to confirm that this is indeed the case.
Thanks to Sebestyen Istvan and William Rucklidge from the JPEG/JBIG committee (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 1 and ITU-T SG8) for helpful information.
Markus Kuhn
created 2002-07-29 -- last modified 2002-07-29 --
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/jbigkit/patents.html
