Steven C. Barr writes: >...who is suing whom...and why...?! Dell and Gateway were sued for selling products that infringe Bell Labs patents. Microsoft signed on as a co-defendant because they had supplied the infringing code. MP3 defines a standard decoder however there is no standard encoder. I doubt that there are even any "open source" encoders that don't also infringe many patents. As I said, this lawsuit is only the tip of an iceberg as companies move from fleecing investors with IPOs to actually trying to earn a living from their day to day operations. -- Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined! 615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com