This is a new ESP Wiki entry explaining the situation around software patents on a new data compression algorithm.

The original author, Jarek Duda, released his work into the public domain. Despite his intentions, Big Tech companies are attempting to patent his technology around the world. In early 2022, Microsoft registered a software patent on ANS. Google tried to do the same a few years ago but failed. We can’t catch them all.

The free software community is fighting an unfair battle. Megacorporations are stealing people’s work by imposing unjustified patent rights. The patent offices grant software patents despite obvious existence of prior art.