Video coding is an essential component of video streaming, digital TV, video chat and many other technologies. This presentation, an invited lecture to the US Patent and Trade Mark Office, describes some of the key developments in the history of video coding. Many of the components of present-day video codecs were originally developed before 1990. From 1990 onwards, developments in video coding were closely associated with industry standards such as MPEG-2, H.264 and H.265/HEVC. The presentation covers: - Basic concepts of video coding - Fundamental inventions prior to 1990 - Industry standards from 1990 to 2014 - Video coding patents and patent pools.