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MIT Sues Sony over digital TV

Posted by Hemos on from the battle-of-odd-giants dept.

dfinney wrote to us with a story from The Tech, concerning MIT suing Sony. Basically, MIT claims to have a number of patents, has worked with other folks in the industry, sez they've talked with Sony for a year, no headway, don't want to sue, but have key claims - etc etc.

11 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. And We're OFF.... by darkPHi3er · · Score: 3, Interesting

    when the economy is good all men and women are brothers and sisters...

    when times are BAD.....

    the Japanese economy just hit a two-decade (17 year to be more precise) low...

    Japanese banks are being given lending capital from the Central Bank at ***ZERO*** percent interest, and there are few-to-NO takers....

    at some point, the Intellectual Property War between the West and the East is really going to heat up

    historically, MIT has been very much a "Good Citizen" on the issues of cross/conflicting patents...Sony, historically, has been so-so

    could this be an early skirmish in the upcoming IP Wars????

    Now, if we're going to do "Lawyers At Dawn", I officially suggest that we carpet bomb Tokyo with attorneys from B-52's and B-1B's in HUGE WAVES

    --
    Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
  2. It's 'bout time they paid up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If the roles were reversed, Sony would sue in a heartbeat & seek damages too.

    On the other hand one wonders, whether Sony will readily hire MIT graduates in the future.

    If certain colleges get labelled as sue happy will their graduates have a hard time getting hired by established corps?

  3. graduate student inventions by mj6798 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    A lot of the truly novel ideas at a place like MIT are developed by graduate students, often with little or no input from professors. That can make the ethical question of ownership of those ideas a bit murky: graduate students aren't exactly getting paid a lot, and what they do get paid often doesn't come from MIT funds (but instead from fellowships and government grants). Of course, legally, you can be sure that MIT's lawyers have it all nailed down airtight.

    I believe that in comparison to other educational institutions, MIT is quite a bit more enlightened, giving inventors 1/3 of any licensing revenues (at least in some departments). Universities like USF (hint: a place probably best avoided by smart students) have their student inventors thrown in jail if they want the exclusive rights to a promising invention.

    As for these specific patents, it would be interesting to know what they are for: do they really represent interesting inventions, or is it the kind of patent that claims "any television that uses a framebuffer and a CPU".

    1. Re:graduate student inventions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
      What the graduate students get out of it is that when they get their Ph.D., they are the foremost experts in the world in one subject.

      This is just not true. People who just received their PhD are rarely if ever considered the worlds foremost experts on any subject, including their dissertation topic. In most cases they'll generally have many more years of work to complete before establishing any sort of reputation for themselves, or even finding a position with any job security in academia.

    2. Re:graduate student inventions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I beg to disagree for the Ph.D. student is often
      the best in the world at what they do. Remember that the Ph.D. is awarded for depth not just breadth of knowledge. There are enough small niche areas that doctoral students almost invariably surpass their advisor's skill in their specialty.

    3. Re:graduate student inventions by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Interesting
      • The point of academia is fame, not fortune. People who want to make their discoveries and get paid well for them go into industry
      • I am under an NDA agreement. My employer decides who I may and may not share my knowledge with, and can legally gag me.
      • My employer owns all rights to my inventions.
      • My employer uses my inventions for their financial gain.

      From that description, you tell me whether I work in "academia" or "industry". There is no dividing line any more.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  4. Re:Even if it were entirely federally funded... by Zico · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Because it also allows American small businesses and individual hackers to walk away with a huge amount of research, too. And no, it isn't free, because we all pay taxes, including Sony. Note that I'm not arguing whether or not MIT is federally funded or not, but if they were, then why should they be entitled to all the loot when the American people are the venture capitalists who are paying for the seed money?

  5. Re:I'm curious... by Fat+Casper · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It's nice to see this happeining with someone that Sony can't bury with lawyers. MIT isn't doing this for the money- they want a judgement. They aren't a lone inventor without the deep pockets needed to make Sony behave politely. This will be fun to watch.

    --
    I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
  6. US Laws and Extraterritoriality by LordZardoz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sony is a Japanese company. Does the US Legal system really have much right to tell a Japanese company what technologies it can and cannot develop?

    The only reasons I can think of for Sony to comply are Japanese surrender terms from World War 2, or trade agreements that would get Sony to recognize US patents. In that case, it would be the Japanese Govt who should be enforcing this, not the US courts.

    END COMMUNICATION

  7. Ironic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    ...when I put the finishing touches to the library I developed for my Masters' degree, I wanted to make it freely available. I'm not so keen on the GPL, so I decided to use a... get this... "MIT style" license.

    These are the same people who brought us the X-window system, released under what is probably the least restrictive public license of them all, right? So why the sudden change of heart?

    OK, so there's a lot more money to be made out of digital TVs than there was out of a network-transparent client-server windowing system for UNIX. But YKWIM.

  8. Re:I don't get it... by r_j_prahad · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Isn't MIT a federally funded University? I always thought that university research should go in public domain, no copyrights, no patents, no nothin' ... and here we have every week at least one case of some university suing whomever for patent violations... odd


    It hasn't been that way for a long time now. The sale and licensing of intellectual property can represent a significant source of income to a university, and those dollars can be used to offset tuition costs and operating expenses, which is a good thing.

    It's no different than intercollegiate sports; the players aren't professionals, public funds help pay their tuitions, why shouldn't we get into the games for free? Because the ticket fees help support the program so my taxes don't have to.