Forgent Networks Wins $25M from Sony for JPEG Patent

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."

Comments

Fed up about reading about bad patents

[nattt]

The patent system is increasingly under abuse, and the US Patent office will allow anything through. It's past time for a revamp of the whole system, the removal of a lot of patents and make some areas un-patentable again.

Re:Fed up about reading about bad patents

[jafuser]

Sometime over the past few decades, we went from a majority of people following the spirit of the law, to them following only the most literal letter of the law...

Now it's all about how you can find the next loophole to exploit, and profit from it as much as possible before someone else does and the loophole is closed.

I think it's quite a sign of how sad the situation is when you look at how much favoritisim our government gives to big business, when a business itself does not have a right to vote.

Re:Fed up about reading about bad patents

[dougmc]

The patent system is increasingly under abuse, and the US Patent office will allow anything through.

As much as I agree with you, I'm not sure that this idea really apply here. If the patent in question expires next year, that means it was granted in 1987 or earlier. When JPEG encoding first `came out', it was pretty revolutionary, and probably even fit the `not obvious to the layperson' rule that the patent office so often ignores. If the original creator of the JPEG process is the one who patented it, then I'd say it's a valid patent. (of course, if he agreed not to enforce it so it could become an ISO standard, that's another matter.)

Though what seems to happen more often is that somebody comes up with something clever, and may or may not patent it. Then somebody else comes along, and either patents the original idea (if not patented) or patents it being used in all kinds of obvious ways (like `doing X ... on a computer' was pretty popular a few years ago.)

Patent reform wouldn't be nearly so important if the patent office could simply follow it's own rules -- i.e. checking for prior art, and disallowing patents on things that are `obvious to the layperson'.

Re:Fed up about reading about bad patents

[freestyle-fiend]

> It's past time for a revamp of the whole system,

I agree. The patent system needs to be changed, not only to prevent bad patents from being awarded, but also to allow (even poor) individuals and small companies to defend and prosecute patent cases and apply for patents. Currently patents are expensive to obtain and use. Patent holders are able to use the cost of court proceedings to punish or frighten
those of whom they disapprove (especially weaker competitors), even if they would not win the case.

> make some areas un-patentable again.

This sounds like Richard Stallman's solution to the patent crisis. I used to agree with it, until I was told that the purpose of the patent system is to provide an incentive (in the form of a monopoly or royalties) for the developer of the idea covered by the patent to publish it. Many of the ideas covered by controversial patents don't need to be published for us to understand them. Some are simply too obvious and others can be reverse engineered. These patents have no purpose. Therefore it is not the case that some areas need to be exempt from patents, but that only ideas that would take the rest of the sector the entire term of the patent or longer to understand should be patentable.

Good

[LegendLength]

Nothing wakes up the apathetic masses quite like this ruling. I wonder if we will ever live in a world where more than 5/10 people realize the importance of open standards. I can dream.

Re:Good

[archnerd]

Surely you're refering to tech community and not to the general population? Do you think 5 out of 10 people even understand what "open standards" are?

Ownership

[nuggz]

A standard is something people agree on.

Just because someone somewhere says "this is standard" it does not revoke patents other individuals or organizations have.

Re:Ownership

[AtomicBomb]

I think standardization process is one of the area patent rule must be reformed on. For "important enough" standard, which can be classified as say ANSI, ISO etc, they should be able to register with the patent office.

A deadline (e.g. 1 yr) is set for patent holders who think their patent has been violated in the process. If they don't actively defense their patent in that process, tell them to forget about it.

I know some readers may worry about some companies may start abusing the system. But, this won't bring obvious advantage to them. These people don't actually do research/invention. They don't have material to copy at that stage. Even so, there is no money return if they succeed to block the standardization process.

Unisys

[Anonymous Coward]

The patent on GIFs expires soon (June) .. I wonder if Unisys will donate the patent to the public domain a month before it expires (in the tradition of RSA) or will they wait around till it expires and milk every dime off a patent everybody knows they dont deserve.

2004

[Anonymous Coward]

"Supposedly Forgent only has until 2004 to get all it can out of the patent."

So what? They can still dedicate the next 20 years suing people who violated their patent before 2004.

There is a fine line... always is for the Sopranos

[adzoox]

Exactly, I liken this to a "new mafia" that has arisen in the tech sector.

Instead of working hard and being creative, companies (and individuals) have chosen to litigate with crooked lawyers. These lawyers (think Johnny Cochran type) aren't creative, aren't smart, they are simply crooks. It's almost like they advertise and recruit through high profile cases such as this. Juries, Judges, and the public at large are being taken advantage of the same way the mafia takes advantage of an industry or commodity. In this case and cases such as Bezos being able to patent every type of transaction that uses a mouse click, and in most cases, the entire Microsoft Apple/Netscape trials, the judicial systems knowledge of the small details are taken advantage of.

I agree with you, this will have the effect, if successful, of invalidating the technology (JPEG) - a new standard will arise. I am both happy and concerned that it may be Sony though. They have the muscle and marketting/liscensing power to make a new standard adopted very quickly. However, they also tend get all googly eyed when they have the opportunity to make something proprietary and be the SOLE distributer or patent/copyright/license holder.

learn your lessons NOW people

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

GIF, JPEG, ...

MP3. Get it through your heads, people. Using these patent-encumbered tech only comes back to bite you where it hurts -- 5 years down a committed tech track. PNG, OGG, ... support open standards in your products NOW while you can choose to do it.

duh

[Smallest]

up until last year, JPEG was considered "open". nobody here even suspected JPEG would be in patent trouble.

maybe tomorrow someone will pop up with a patent that covers the compression that zLib uses (g'bye PNG).

who would you yell at then?

-c

Re:Enough already

[esper_child]

People like that disgust me. what is the point to having that much money. There is none. He already has more money than most people here will see, and he wants MORE?
Anyways this is probly even further off topic, but what really is the point to amassing monitary wealth? It seems to me that wealth should be given back to the community to try and make it a better place. The path bettering oneself is not through money but through what is inside. You must give up external wealth to gain internal wealth. In the end it isn't the number of toys that matter, but the actions one takes that matter.

2004

[ajs]

Don't assume you're safe in 2004. If they can demonstrate that they were doing research into infringement since before the patent expired, I suspect they can press a case against anyone who did not pay them for back royaltees up to when it expired.

This means that you shoudl not be USING the patented technology UNTIL the patent expires.

Does anyone know EXACTLY what's covered? JPEG is huge and has many optional peices. If someone tells me what bits are patented I will start looking at public code to see what can be changed to preserve functionality while still providing JPEG access.