Comment 3 for bug 733092

In the US, patents last at most 20 years under current law (and at the time, I believe it was shorter, 17 years). See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/35/154.html (the current law), and page 146 of the old law, http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/old/E5R14_L.pdf . If Wikipedia is to be believed, JPEG's design was complete by 1990, any patents covering JPEG would either certainly have expired by 2010, probably earlier, or would be bogus due to prior art.

I believe it's also 20 years in the EU and Japan and most other countries.