The Last MPEG-4 Visual Patent Has Expired
Points and comments are a snapshot, not live.
The last MPEG-4 Part 2 patent expired on July 19, 2026, ending patent protection for the codec.
The final MPEG-4 Visual patent, BRPI0109962B1 in Brazil, expired on July 19, 2026. The VIA Licensing Alliance confirmed this was the last active patent. US and EU patents had already expired in previous years. This standard is the basis for the Xvid and DivX codecs.
What commenters are saying
Commenters celebrated the expiration, noting it covers MPEG-4 Part 2 (Xvid/DivX, not H.264). One correction noted this is a superset of H.263, not H.263 itself. Discussion noted that H.264 patents remain active, with global expiration expected around 2030-11-10. Some looked forward to increased open-source support, while others pointed out that modern codecs like AV1 already offer better compression.