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Forgent Networks Wins $25M from Sony for JPEG Patent

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the getting-while-the-getting-is-good dept.

SuperBanana writes "A story at the Imaging Resource reports that Forgent Networks just won a $25m lawsuit against Sony, for unpaid royalties on patents Forgent bought back in 1997 for $65,000(there's a nice return); the lawsuit concerns patents on 'JPEG encoding and decoding', which Sony's cameras supposedly infringe upon. Sony is challenging the ruling. Older Slashdot stories covered this back in 2002 when this first popped up on people's radar screens, mainly when the ISO threatened to revoke JPEG's ISO status unless Forgent stopped throwing its weight around. Supposedly Forgent only has until 2004 to get all it can out of the patent."

3 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Ummm...Forgent? Read Article... by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 5, Informative

    It wasn't Forgent Networks that won the 25m, it was St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants Inc.. It just happens to be that the Forgent Networks patent lisence fees that Sony began paying allowed St. Clair to win the case.

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    We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
  2. Wrong headline: this is not Forgent. by Raphael · · Score: 5, Informative

    The headline and the text of the Slashdot submission are wrong. Sony paid $16M to Forgent Network some time ago as part of an out-of-court settlement. But this article is about a different company: St. Clair Intellectual Property Consultants Inc. of Grosse Pointe, Mich. That company is the one that has won $25M in court.

    Please read the text of the article and the press release appended to it, and you will see a different story than the one given in the Slashdot submission. The press release contains a quote saying: "this lawsuit is similar to out-of-court settlements reached by Forgent Networks and Dallas based law firm [...]" but the two cases are different. They are both bad, but the companies are different.

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    -Raphaël
  3. Not exactly JPEG patents by 200_success · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, if you read the patents linked from the article, they aren't even patents on JPEG. They make claims on the use of compressed storage formats in digital cameras, such as JPEG.

    • #6,496,222 Digital camera with memory format initialization
    • #6,323,899 Process for use in electronic camera
    • #6,233,010 Electronic still video camera with direct personal computer (PC) compatible digital format output
    • #6,094,219 Electronic still video camera with direct personal computer (PC) compatible digital format output
    • #5,576,757 Electronic still video camera with direct personal computer (PC) compatible digital format output
    • #5,138,459 Electronic still video camera with direct personal computer (PC) compatible digital format output

    What digial camera doesn't have the capability to store compressed images? Nobody would buy a camera that wasted memory by storing uncompressed images. Therefore, these are essentially patents on digital cameras!