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Is TrueType 'free'?

It may be free in some areas outside the United States of America, but until U.S. Patent 5,155,805 expires on October 13, 2009, some important parts of TrueType technology are not free in the U.S. or in countries that have signed mutual patent recognition treaties with the U.S.

Besides, the particular fonts in question are probably copyrighted until 70 years after the death of the designers who worked on those fonts. A typeface cannot be copyrighted, but a hinting program (there's usually one in every TTF) can.

"Technique which utilizes a probabilistic classifier to detect "junk" e-mail by automatically updating a training and re-training the classifier based on the updated training set"

The full details of the patent can be seen here.

Patent Link

I'm surprised you guys don't check at the patent office first before you get all excited about a new idea. Doh!

Then have a look at This (Posted on Usenet 1994-02-28)

Where is says:
If you can access IRC you will be able to get in touch with other netfolk on the #soccer channel. Even if no-one else is there you will usually find a bot, called FootInfo, who will give you the latest results. Type '/msg FootInfo help' for details,

This help system works with the /msg command, i.e. it's one-to-one bot-discussion.

There is no getting around it: for community oversight, the community has to see what's going on. I probably should have posted this link instead of the search utility above, however; it does make it easier to look through the latest applications. But the bottom line is, people have to be willing to look it up every day, as faithfully as they check the new trolls on /. In fact, seeing people ask here for a tool that *already exists* shows me just how unwilling we are to commit any effort to the cause.

Food for thought...

Read Claim #1 - it clearly states that this invention pertains to a bot that must sign into IM using a screen name and that screen name must be an authorized user on the buddy list of another user. Any system that doesn't do any part of that isn't covered by that claim, period. IRC, Ask jeeves - they don't do that do they?

Here's claim 1 of the patent in question: 1. A method for interactively responding to queries from a user logged in to an instant messaging network, comprising the steps of:

logging a message processor in to the instant messaging network under a first screen-name

Many IRC networks have NickServ, which lets users "log in" to a screen-name.

the user having the first screen-name as an authorized partner and being advised by the instant messaging network of the presence of the message processor;

A bot could require that a user have a name from NickServ. IRC implements "advised by the IM network of the bot" as the "whois" command.

receiving a query addressed to the first screen-name from the user via the instant messaging network in an instant messaging protocol; parsing the query to extract the request; evaluating the request in the message processor formulating an answer to the user's query on the basis of the evaluated request; generating an output message containing the answer; and sending the output message to the user via the instant messaging network.

Every single command line interface does this.

Thus, claim 1 covers all IRC bots. Now, I analyze some of the other claims to give readers a taste of what kind of prior art could be used to attack this patent:

Claim 2 covers a slight technicality.

Claim 3 covers an IRC bot that accesses a database.

Claim 4 covers an IRC bot that accesses a database containing user profiles.

Claim 5 covers an IRC bot that accesses a database containing user profiles, which automatically creates profiles for new users.

Claim 6 is claim 5 where the user specifies personal information in registering for an account with the bot.

Claims 7 and 8 are claim 6 where such information is specified on a web form.

Claims 9 and 10 are claim 3 where the bot asks the user for information.

Claim 11 is claim 3 where the query response information is JOINed with a profile.

Claim 12 is claim 11 where the bot asks the user for such information.

Claim 13 covers an IRC bot that generates encoded URLs.

Claim 14 covers parsing encoded URLs generated by an IRC bot.

Claims 15 and 16 cover minor technicalities in claim 14.

Claim 17 is claim 14 where the encoded URLs expire.

But depending on the definition of "instant messaging network", techniques already in use on hundreds of Apache servers would infringe at least claims 1-17, invalidating most of the patent.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='6,368,227'.WKU.&OS=PN/6,368,227& RS=PN/6,368,227

Since the web server starts becoming "Sorry! Busy, too many users", and then stops accepting connections... let's see if we can /. it(tm)(US patent #FFFFFF) :) So give them all your support! The USPTO needs all your support! So give the supportthey really need!

Since the web server starts becoming "Sorry! Busy, too many users", and then stops accepting connections... let's see if we can /. it(tm)(US patent #FFFFFF) :) So give them all your support! The USPTO needs all your support! So give the supportthey really need!

Since the web server starts becoming "Sorry! Busy, too many users", and then stops accepting connections... let's see if we can /. it(tm)(US patent #FFFFFF) :) So give them all your support! The USPTO needs all your support! So give the supportthey really need!

Since the web server starts becoming "Sorry! Busy, too many users", and then stops accepting connections... let's see if we can /. it(tm)(US patent #FFFFFF) :) So give them all your support! The USPTO needs all your support! So give the supportthey really need!

Since the web server starts becoming "Sorry! Busy, too many users", and then stops accepting connections... let's see if we can /. it(tm)(US patent #FFFFFF) :) So give them all your support! The USPTO needs all your support! So give the supportthey really need!

Since the web server starts becoming "Sorry! Busy, too many users", and then stops accepting connections... let's see if we can /. it(tm)(US patent #FFFFFF) :) So give them all your support! The USPTO needs all your support! So give the supportthey really need!

Following up on my own post. These guys are not done yet. There is a continuing application...

United States Patent Application 20020103917

Kay, Timothy ; et al.

Method and system for interactively responding to instant messaging requests

"This patent application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/643,262, filed Aug. 22, 2000, entitled "METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR INTERACTIVELY RESPONDING TO INSTANT MESSAGING REQUESTS," which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety"

After they have been on file 18 months, the USPTO does publish most patent applications. The website also has information on third-party submissions related to a patent application.

Mind you, you don't get to argue the relevance of the reference. Because of this, most big-money players don't play the game that way. However, if you just want to give the Examiner a helping hand, you can.

After they have been on file 18 months, the USPTO does publish most patent applications. The website also has information on third-party submissions related to a patent application.

Mind you, you don't get to argue the relevance of the reference. Because of this, most big-money players don't play the game that way. However, if you just want to give the Examiner a helping hand, you can.

It's already here.

On patents, I think the most sensible argument against them was presented in a letter to the US Patent Office by Donald Knuth, where he points out that software and the algorithms used therein are mathematics, and mathematics have previously been exempted from patents.

Regarding copyrights, while I would be quite happy with a short limitation on the life of a copyright (5 years would suit me just fine... 10-15 would be ok, anything longer is ludicrous in the technology field), I think his presentation is quite a bit more radical than most professional programmers might agree with after putting some thought into it.

Some of us don't particularly like working as employees of companies which we do not own, but without the protection that copyright provides it would be impossible to make a living by creating consumer software products. Yes, you could write custom software under contract to a corporation for money, or write software as an employee of a company, but to write a product for consumers? Who would pay for that? The average person who'd want to use a word processor certainly isn't going to cough up enough money to pay my rent for the amount of time I'd need to write one...

Without copyright, if I write a cool app and want to sell it, I'd only sell it once before anyone who wanted it could just get it for free... This is absolutely great for code I write in my spare time for fun, or tools and libraries I write to help me do my work where they might be useful to others, but *something* has to put food on the table.

However, I do think that once you buy something, at least the copy you own should be able to be used by you in whatever manner you wish. So his speech seems misguided... The real threat is that with recent legislation, that is less and less true.

I support the EFF and donate.... but the presentation is off target. I hope his arguments before the Supreme Court are less radical and stay based on the fact that 100 years is way too long for a copyright, rather than implying that copyright is bad.

Think he used a pirated copy of PowerPoint? ;)

Your characterization of trademark has a few probems. Firstly, trademarks protect the owner of the mark from having others misuse their mark to cause a "likelihood of confusion" as to the "source of origin" of the product. One violation of this is when one tries to "pass off" a product that is so substantially similar to the authentic product, using the trademark of the authentic, to confuse the public. If there is not a "likelihood of confusion" as to the source of origin of the product, there is no trademark infringement.

This is one reason that the infringement action brought by Ford Motor Co. against the domain "fordsucks.com" fails under trademark law. Noone but a moron would possibly believe that domain points to the source of origin as being the Ford Motor Co. (Now if Ford Motors trademarked "ford sucks" for one if its products, the answer under trademark law might be different :-)

Another aspect of trademark law is that the mark is restricted to certain categories of goods and services. You can sell bedsheets and name them "Ford Bedsheets" without infringing the Ford Motor Co. trademark (unless perhaps you advertise or otherwise imply they are a good fit for the rear seats of Ford cars). Ford is "primarily merely a surname", that has acquired "secondary meaning" within the automotive industry; But Ford does not have "secondary meaning" or trademark rights in every other industry.

This requirement that the trademark applicant specify the goods and services they seek protection for is part the reason that the suit by Molson for its mark on "Canadian" for its beer against the registrant of the canadian.biz domain fails under trademark law. Another reason, in that case, is that "Canadian" is a generic term, and no one company can secure rights to a generic term for any and all uses.

As a somewhat minor point, contary to what you suggest, anyone can use a trademarked product that is authentic for whatever they want ... period. They can also "use" a knock-off product unless their use is in commerce (e.g., selling it as the authentic). Trademark law does not have a restriction on the use of an authentic item.

OK, I don't read Japanese, so I don't know what Toho is in the business of; But judging from their trademarks, it's toys and things like that. Check out what you find with a USPTO trademark search. You might be surprised at the number of "zillas" that are trademarked, and the narrow scope of Toho's trademark rights as to categories to which their mark applies.

Toho probably has the theory that having a "zilla" used with what you call a "dinosaur-like thing" is confusing as to the source of origin. Personally, I don't see how anyone would be confused that a company that makes or distributes plastic toys, comic books, posters, etc., is somehow related to the source of origin of the leading state-of-the-art browser. I also doubt that they have enforceable trademark rights on fire-breathing, dinosaur-like things per se, since marks on "drawings" are inherently weak and restricted to the particular drawing registered (unless perhaps, the drawings are confusingly similar to the marked drawing, but drawings are really the realm of copyright).

Personally, if they do go after mozilla.org, I say mozilla should tell Toho to shove it and request attorney fees, costs, and treble damages for having brought a suit in bad faith. Then again, I think that davezilla should do the same thing, but last I read he was conceding to Toho on the picture part even though his zilla looked like a scrawny runt of the litter and not a "god"zilla.

Just my 2 cents.

Indeed, Netscape filed for trademark protection for the term "Mozilla" on 7-July-1995, under serial number 74698316.

However, since 18-July-1997, the status has been "An opposition is now pending at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board." There has not been a resolution and so "Mozilla" is not a registered trademark.

Gah, stupid expiring sessions. Anyway, go here and search on Godzilla, you'll be amazed.

While Toho first trademarked the Godzilla word mark in 1981, they did not hold a trademark on its use in computer software until October of 1994. Mozilla started in "mid-1994" from the best info I've been able to find. I seem to remember someone showing it to me in the spring of that year, though that might have been Mosaic. Neither their first trademark nor the software one have any illustrations or descriptions of a lizard-like monster creature, though; that does not appear to be a part of the trademark. Their most comprehensive trademark was registered in 2000, presumably with the launch of the Sony movie. That one *still* doesn't describe godzilla though.

I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla since 1987.

All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)

I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...

While Toho first trademarked the Godzilla word mark in 1981, they did not hold a trademark on its use in computer software until October of 1994. Mozilla started in "mid-1994" from the best info I've been able to find. I seem to remember someone showing it to me in the spring of that year, though that might have been Mosaic. Neither their first trademark nor the software one have any illustrations or descriptions of a lizard-like monster creature, though; that does not appear to be a part of the trademark. Their most comprehensive trademark was registered in 2000, presumably with the launch of the Sony movie. That one *still* doesn't describe godzilla though.

I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla since 1987.

All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)

I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...

While Toho first trademarked the Godzilla word mark in 1981, they did not hold a trademark on its use in computer software until October of 1994. Mozilla started in "mid-1994" from the best info I've been able to find. I seem to remember someone showing it to me in the spring of that year, though that might have been Mosaic. Neither their first trademark nor the software one have any illustrations or descriptions of a lizard-like monster creature, though; that does not appear to be a part of the trademark. Their most comprehensive trademark was registered in 2000, presumably with the launch of the Sony movie. That one *still* doesn't describe godzilla though.

I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla since 1987.

All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)

I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...

While Toho first trademarked the Godzilla word mark in 1981, they did not hold a trademark on its use in computer software until October of 1994. Mozilla started in "mid-1994" from the best info I've been able to find. I seem to remember someone showing it to me in the spring of that year, though that might have been Mosaic. Neither their first trademark nor the software one have any illustrations or descriptions of a lizard-like monster creature, though; that does not appear to be a part of the trademark. Their most comprehensive trademark was registered in 2000, presumably with the launch of the Sony movie. That one *still* doesn't describe godzilla though.

I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla since 1987.

All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)

I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...

While Toho first trademarked the Godzilla word mark in 1981, they did not hold a trademark on its use in computer software until October of 1994. Mozilla started in "mid-1994" from the best info I've been able to find. I seem to remember someone showing it to me in the spring of that year, though that might have been Mosaic. Neither their first trademark nor the software one have any illustrations or descriptions of a lizard-like monster creature, though; that does not appear to be a part of the trademark. Their most comprehensive trademark was registered in 2000, presumably with the launch of the Sony movie. That one *still* doesn't describe godzilla though.

I'm no trademark attorney, but I'm guessing that, since they're not claiming in the trademark registration that the mark consists of the word + the monster, they don't have a leg to stand on with *zilla claims. Also, it doesn't appear they stopped Bugzilla (the cleaning agent, not the software) from registering its trademark in 2000. Milton Bradley has also owned a trademark on Eggzilla since 1987.

All in all, they have a lot of fish to fry if they're going to try to reserve *zilla as their own, including multiple existing or pending trademarks. (Budzilla, Rodzilla, and Speedzilla are all currently published for opposition.)

I love the Trademark Electronic Search System...

Here is a TESS search for the Godzilla trademark. You can look through there and see what they have trademarks on.

Eventually, "instead of moving them, we [picked] up the atoms," using a scanning tunneling microscope, he said.

. . .which in response to being placed in intimate contact with the lower atom of a selected dimer results in an interatomic bond which accommodates pulling the lower atom upward and thus pulling the upper atom downward so as to effect a change in the dimer angle.

You can look it up in their search engine.

The infamous U. S. patent 6,368,227 granted a patent to the method of swinging sideways on a playground swing, in the manner practiced by children for decades.

Could this patent have been granted in Europe, and, if not, what would have prevented it?

Do you think your office would have approved this patent (approved April 9, 2002)?

If you look at the US Trademarks database, you'll notice that Unix was first registered by AT&T back in 1986, predating the 1993 registration of "unix.com" by almost a decade.

TO ICANN LAWYERS - JONES, DAY, REAVIS & POGUE

Why do ICANN stick with Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue? Is it because of certain old ICANN links with them? Are JDRP profiteering? They are very costly - have ICANN looked for other Law firms?

Have you checked out JDRP.com - and their people involvement with ICANN?

A quote from a Karl Auerbach:

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue is ICANN's law firm, and has been so since the day of ICANN's birth. Indeed Jones-Day actually performed the incorporation ceremony in its Los Angeles offices.

Jones, Day, in the person of its principle man-on-the-ICANN-scene, Joe Sims, was present for at least half a year before ICANN was born, working in the shadows, responding to unknown interests and possibly making unknown deals. About all we know about that period is that those who were not insiders to Joe Sims process were ignored and that those who objected were treated with condescension and abuse.

Over the life of ICANN, Jones, Day has been the the dominant creditor of ICANN.

Even now Jones, Day continues to receive a lion's share of every dollar that flows into ICANN.

And one of Jones, Day's partners, Louis Touton, left the firm to become ICANN's Vice-President, Secretary, and General Counsel.

There is in my mind a question about the appearance of propriety.

Karls platform.

***End quote.

In a good two month period, October and November 2000, they got $465,553.67 from ICANN.

ICANN minutes.

As it one of the largest intellectual property practice groups in a general-practice law firm - with more than 85 intellectual property lawyers, I would imagine Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue make a lot of money on trademarks problems on the Internet.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu - even common words you learnt with your A B C's - apple, ball and cat - most many times over.

MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.

The solution to this problem has been ratified by experts - so that ALL registered trademarks can be identified on the Internet.

Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue know this solution.

They would lose a lot of money, if there was less trademark problems on the Internet - wouldn't they?

Draw your own conclusions - but it is my opinion they do not want the solution to 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off' problems on the Internet.

There is in my mind certainly no question about the appearance of corruption - it is beyond doubt.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk to see. No connection with the United Nations WIPO.org.

The authorities know the solution to trademark conflicts.

You can legally use any word, words or initials to start a new business without registering a trademark - providing you are not passing off, of course. Take for example the word 'apple'. It is legally used by thousands of businesses - large and small all over the world. Indeed, it is impossible that they all register themselves as trademarks - they are bound to conflict with many others, being confusingly similar. Just in my local phone book alone, there are at least five using this word - two garages (seems not connected), a car centre, fruit growers and a decorating firm.

Fact: Virtually every word is trademarked. In this vast ocean of domains on the Internet, mostly non-trademarks, a marker is absolutely essential - for people to identify it as trademark (e.g. protected TLD of .reg) - as in apple.reg. This is because all word domains are 'confusingly similar' to trademarks. That is one of the excuses they use to steal domain in UDRP.

This .reg could serve the same purpose as the registered trademark symbol ® - to advise the public that it is legally registered and protected by law.

Yes, it is true - check USPTO link at end of paragraph - Virtually every word is trademarked. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with five trademarks - in the U.S. alone (please check).

Whatever word you have for your business or personal web site, you will have some big bully try take your domain away from you. This is all a fraud by big business - the authorities are corrupt in helping them overreach Trademark Law.

It is ILLEGAL for one trademark to prevent others from using their trademark - even if using identical word. To allow this without consumer confusion or trademark conflict, it is absolutely essential that the class or subclass is included. Please visit WIPO.org.uk - Not associated with United Nations WIPO.org

Without having an opinion one way or the other on the impact of RMS's behavior at the meeting, I am one person who was active in the civil-rights movement in the early 60's who is not offended by the comparison of it to the fight to restrain IP claims. (I'm also author of several minor patents -- example.)

US-led intellectual-property laws (all mixed together, as Stallman points out) are a growing method of forcing the poorer parts of the world to send money to the richer parts. The biggest problem is not copyright, but patents such as the ones that make many needed medicines too expensive to use throughout most of the world. Taking money from impoverished sick people (or countries) just for the privilege of using an idea is as immoral as were the earlier colonial and feudal expropriations that were also justified by ownership ideas that are now discredited.

Laws that let you keep other people from using ideas need to be limited to what can be clearly shown to benefit people in general. When numerous trivial ideas are granted patents, and unjustified but ruinously-expensive infringement lawsuits are routinely used to stifle independent invention, it is clear that the correct balance has been lost. While the protests should not be limited to DRM (it won't help for people to see entertainment piracy as the only IP issue), I think that the fights on DRM are an important element in awakening people to the dangers posed by greed backed up by political power, even if the greatest such dangers are not DRM ones.

The civil-rights movement and the women's-rights movements were glad to make use of precedents from the ACLU's free-speech efforts to stop pornography prosecutions and from alliances first formed to repeal alcohol prohibition -- even if the issues were not directly related in theory, the enemies of more freedom were pretty much the same in all cases, so that all the freedom efforts reinforced each other in practice. Efforts for more IP freedom are in the same tradition.

Rather funny wsn't AOL advertising on their networks back in 95? Wouldn't it be 'obvious to someone skilled in the art' to add adds to on line newspapers since they have adds on their paper print?

I hope they do go after all these on line advertisers. Then we could get ride of al these stupid adds on line ;-).

I think that doubleclick as well as many others were doing this long before this patent was filed, and IMHO it is very vague.

"inputting configuration parameters" .. uh this is done so that you can set your banner size to 480x60 and the other sizes.. hmm what I wonder what the the IAB (http://www.iab.net/) think of this.

No, it doesn't.

Read the patent carefully (it's here) - you'll notice it describes a fairly involved system of advert distribution.

Which is why the patent was granted.

What? The damn thing was filed in the year 2000 and just granted lasted month. This is very likely prior art all over the place, although IANAL.

The patent is here

-Sean

It seems clear that Corporations wish to prevent criticism about them on the Internet - and your ability to find things on them using search engines.

The authorities know how to make trademark domains unique and totally distinctive. They hide this for several reasons - including to stop you calling them by name. They are all corrupt folks.

Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with five trademarks - in the U.S. alone.

The authorities prevent ALL from using their name - without 'consumer confusion', 'trademark conflict' and 'passing off'.

Please visit WIPO.org.uk - Not associated with United Nations WIPO.org.

Link

Microsoft do indeed have a patent on ASF. It's number 6,041,345 and you can read it here. It's yet another tragic example of why the folks at the US Patent Office should all be fired - things like this have prior art written all over them. I also find it interesting that the patent is dated March 2000, which is quite a long time after the format became ubiquitous. Anybody think they got scared about the reverse engineering around about then and saw a good way to stop it? And MS try to claim they're not anti-competitive...

BTW, I spoke recently with Michael Bohlin (the program manager of Microsoft's digital media division) and he told me that Corona is going RTP/RTSP, so it might well be that by the time anything to do with Helix serving Windows Media files gets dragged through the courts, no one will be using the MMS protocol anyway. This, combined with it not being illegal to reverse engineer stuff on the wire, means that it's extremely unlikely MS will try to nail Real on charges of reverse engineering. I think it'll be this patent if it's anything.

Patent Abstract
An active stream format is defined and adopted for a logical structure that encapsulates multiple data streams. The data streams may be of different media. The data of the data streams is partitioned into packets that are suitable for transmission over a transport medium. The packets may include error correcting information. The packets may also include clock licenses for dictating the advancement of a clock when the data streams are rendered. The format of ASF facilitates flexibility and choice of packet size and in specifying maximum bit rate at which data may be rendered. Error concealment strategies may be employed in the packetization of data to distribute portions of samples to multiple packets. Property information may be replicated and stored in separate packets to enhance its error tolerance. The format facilitates dynamic definition of media types and the packetization of data in such dynamically defined data types within the format.

"According to the GATT implementing legislation, the term of a patent that is in force on or that results from an application that was filed before the effective date of the 20-year patent term shall be the greater of the 20-year patent term described above or 17 years from the date of grant subject to any terminal disclaimers. This provision will provide existing holders of enforceable patents and future holders of patents that issue on an application that was filed before the effective date of the 20- year patent term provision (June 8, 1995) the longer of the 17- year or 20-year patent term provisions."

This is codified at 35 USC 154(c), which states:

"The term of a patent that is in force on or that results from an application filed before the date that is 6 months after the date of the enactment of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act shall be the greater of the 20-year term as provided in subsection (a), or 17 years from grant, subject to any terminal disclaimers."

As a result, this patent expires 20 years from the application filing date (i.e., the patent expires October 27, 2006).

The URL is too long to paste here.

Whoo, what a long link!

The URL doesn't have to be pasted.

I'm not rusty on the JPEG algorithm.

I read through the legalese wording of the first 40 claims and even though it describes an algorithm that uses run lengh coding and huffman-like coding (more generic), the algorithm that is described in this patent is not part of Baseline JPEG as standardized in ITU-T T.81, ISO 10918-1, and MIL-STD-188-198A

Sony never should have paid. I guess that's what happens if you let lawyers run the world and bluff their way around court rooms. IANAL and I feel sorry for those who are.

I'd sell my Forgent stocks asap.

Luckily the '775 patent has already expired. JPEG seems safe, but motion JPEG might be exposed.

Luckily the '775 patent has already expired. JPEG seems safe, but motion JPEG might be exposed.

The full text of the Patent (US4689672) can be found here. It was filed in 1986.

The Joint Photographic Experts Group Committee published the JPEG standard in 1994. While JPEG files were used prior to the publishing of the standard, it's pretty clear that JPEG images themselves don't count as prior art regarding this patent.

This patent appears to me to cover RLE files (claim 1). This strikes me as likely to have prior art.

This patent appears to me to cover a simlple scheme one step removed from Huffman encoding (claim 6). This also seems likely to have prior art.

If someone can find prior art for claims 1, 6, 13, 25, 30, 36, 38, 39 and 42, the entire patent seems likely to fall apart, since every claim is dependant on those few.

U.S. patents are made freely available for searching and reading at the USPTO web site.

found it online, not a difficult search to do. For those of you too lazy, click this underlined hunk of text

Some people seem to be confused about the patent filing. The JPEG compression technology was indeed a collaborative effort that would require a lot of audacity for someone to claim as their own. The issue is that at the heart of the JPEG compression technology at the time it was made was the algorithm here [uspto.gov] that was filed on October 27, 1986. The issue is that just now, after the JPEG compression standard has been in place for years, the patent owner chose to begin enforcement. I'm not sure if any "squatter's rights" hold for patents, but I doubt it considering Sony already paid Forgent off. I suppose that if someone wrote a way to make JPEGs work as they do without using this algorithm (a silly suggestion, I know, but to prove a point) that Forgent would have no claim on JPEG technology.

~Ben