But if anything, I’d say it’s Ogg Theora that more resembles GIF, patent-wise. Prior to Unisys’s assertion of its LZW patent, GIF was considered a free file format. (According to Wikipedia, CompuServe developed the format in the 1980s without knowledge of Unisys’s LZW patent.) The developers of Ogg Theora have released the format and implementations freely, and claim no patent rights to it. But that doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t hold patents — or won’t be granted patents — that they believe or will claim Ogg Theora violates.
— Daring Fireball: GIF, H.264, and Patents
