MIT Sues Sony over digital TV

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.

Comments

Re:I don't get it...

[matrix0040]

No MIT is not a federally funded university.
From mit.edu:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology -- a coeducational, privately endowed research university

Ofcourse there are some projects which get federal grant but not all and so it also has the right to patent stuff like any other research institute

graduate student inventions

[mj6798]

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".

Re:graduate student inventions

[krmt]

While you're right about things being murky, you do have to remember that the University does fund a great deal, including lab space, supplies, and even simple administrative stuff like waste disposal (critical for biohazard), mail, phone, and internet. While salaries don't really come from anything but grants and Teaching Assistant stipends, the University does provide a lot of important stuff.

I totally agree that the inventor should get a significant cut of the pie (I'm biased though, being an undergrad lab assistant ;-) you can't cut out the University because they are critical for a lot of reasons.

Re:graduate student inventions

[Rogerborg]

• 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.

Re:I'm curious...

[platypus]

Sony _has_ been in court for patent infringment before. The case was about the walkman which a german inventor named Andreas Pavel claimed to have a patent for (granted 1977!)
They stumped him with an armee of lawyers, court costs for him were abough 2.000.000 british pounds.
Note that before that sony actually had payed him appr. 50.000$ - while they sold walkmen for a couple of billion $s worldwide.

Not to add facts to the fire but....

[maggard]

Coupla basic points: (easily discovered by anyone willing to invest the same time at a search engine as they did posting something foolish to /.)

• MIT is a private institution. Yes it gets money from public grants & programs, almost every accredited institution does. MIT is no more a public or government entity then the trade schools that advertise on late night TV. Furthermore even parts of the US Gov't doing public work can now claim IP on some of their products.
• Yes MIT uses Graduate Students and no they don't generally earn much. On the other hand putting them to work probably does keep their tuition down a bit and heck, if you don't like it you can always go someplace else (courts rarely require X years attending MIT as part of a sentence and the campus is very open, one is free to leave it and not return at any time.) However this has nothing to do with the topic and just gets brought up every time a .edu issue is raised.
• The US HDTV standards happened after the FCC ran a competition in which four finalists emerged. Rather then a winner-take-all situation emerging (which would of taken years with the legal wrangling) a pooling of the "best" of a various technologies was brokered. As the patent & other IP issues around HDTV were spread out amongst several institutions and companies a pool was created held by the companies who now dubbed themselves "The Grand Alliance". Then as any other number of projects have done (DVD, Firewire, etc.) an examiner was brought in to determine exactly what IP was required then a formula was put in place to compensate the IP owners and everything got signed off on.
• MIT earns some large sum of money every year from it's IP material, money which helps fund them. Sony does the same from it's own portfolio. In this case MIT's IP is used through the Grand Alliance agreement, something which Sony seems to have now decided to ignore. Whether or not you agree with all details of all IP in this case it seems rather strightforward and not to fall into any of the areas which so many folks find offensive.
• Yes MIT (a US institution) can sue Sony (a company HQ'd in Japan.) Internationial trade has been going on since we first worked out nations and the laws are rather straightforward in cases like this. Did anyone other then a few sappy posters think that this was a new situation, that one couldn't sue an offshore entity?