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Kodak Sues Sony Over Digital Camera Patents
KenC writes "Kodak has filed a lawsuit against Sony alleging that 10 of its patents have been used without permission. Included among the patents as reported via Reuters is electronic camera utilizing image compression and digital storage . Kodak claim the patents involved were issued between 1987 and 2003. More from Bloomberg." As reader Nekura2025 asks "Um, doesn't that apply to all digital cameras?"
I was unable to find any more sources for this information, as something like Kodak sueing for a patent on "electronic camera utilizing image compression and digital storage" seems like one of those typical press exaggerations.
However, if this really is a patent held by Kodak this is just another example of the failure of the patent system to issue appopriate tecchnology patents. This is just like the "One Click Order" patent that Amazon was trying to enforce a while ago.
I don't understand how a patent could be issued for "electronic camera utilizing image compression and digital storage" when it is simply the assembly of dozens of really patent worth technologies: CCD image sensor, electronicaly programmable non-volitile memory, compression algorithims, and the like
I sincerely hope that this is either a press exaggeration, otherwise it is clear that technology patent problems are still persisting.
Using image compression in a digital camera... I think that idea must be worth... (apply pinky to lip) ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
These patent claims bring a (somewhat) amusing anecdote to mind. Around 1990, I was working at Dell Computer as a wet-behind-the-ears engineer, when the company announced a "patent bounty" of $1,000 per filed application. "Cool!", thought I, as I hastened to write up patent disclosures on every personal project I'd worked on for the past couple of years. (Hey, it seemed like a lot of money at the time.)
One of the disclosures I submitted was for an ungainly contraption that predated most manufacturers' earliest portable digital cameras. "PicturePerfect" was inspired by the Canon Xapshot, but, unlike the Xapshot, it had the ability to store images independently of a host computer and transmit them as data rather than raw video. It worked a lot more like a modern digital camera than anything on the market at that time.
The patent committee at Dell was unimpressed. They didn't file the patent(s) I submitted, didn't pay me $1,000... and possibly missed a chance to own a big chunk of the whole digital-photography industry.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
As reader Nekura2025 asks "Um, doesn't that apply to all digital cameras?" Sure it does...but you need to pick the target with the most money first.
In Rochester, where my parents live, everyone they know who works for Kodak prefaces their statements in meetings with "If I'm still here..."
That company is going downhill so fast, it's no real surprise they're turning to other sources for revenue. But it is depressing that such a former juggernaut couldn't keep their innovation once their old technology started becoming obsolete...sad they couldn't leverage their older skills and technology. Uh...by sad, I mean, not sad at all, sorry, take another number.
Or maybe leveraging their older technology is what they're trying to do with these patent suits, I guess...
Besides that, Nikon, Canon, Minolta, Olympus and many others use Kodak CCD chips in their cameras. Sony uses Sony chips in their cameras.
Say what you want about obvious patents, but Kodak is no SCO - they aren't desperate or stupid enough to sue their own customers.
Edith Keeler Must Die
This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Kodak is way behind in the digital camera market now would it?
If you can't join em, sue em?
True enough, assuming a spurious lawsuit.
However, if you had tremendous amounts of R&D money invested, and someone else was turning your effort into market share and killing you, you might fail to detect humor in the situation.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Kodak, for the past several years, has been pouring money and effort into churning out digital camera IP because they have been having their ass handed to them in the film market. Their film cameras have gone nowhere fast, mostly squashed by Polaroid. Even their digital cameras are being crushed by camera giants Canon and Nikon.
Kodak may still have the lead in medium format and larger digital photography, but this market is much smaller than the DSLR and consumer digicam markets. But with dwindling numbers of customers for their primary product, mostly lured away by the better quality product of FujiFilm, Kodak has pledged to focus on their digital lineup from here on out.
So they've got these patents in hand, and it is indicative of actual patent violation on Sony's part that Sony is the only defendant here. Sony is hardly the largest digicam maker. If Kodak really wanted to go after a company that was making these digital photography and storage devices, they would go after Canon. However, they are not, going after Sony instead. This leads me to believe that Sony is either in violation of Kodak's patents or Sony has some IP that Kodak wants to cross license. Perhaps the 4 color CCD?
I have been pwned because my
While this applies to all digital cameras, almost all digital camera manufacturers pay royalties to Kodak for a license to a number of digital imaging patents. Kodak's labs in Rochester were way out in front of everybody on this, back in the late 80's and early 90's. Unlike Xerox PARC, though, with Xerox's mouse/window based PC's, Kodak filed patents on their innovations, and make a good sum of money licensing them.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
At least they attempted to negotiate with Sony for 3 years before filing suit, and from what i read it sounds like they actually have a couple of solid patents that might hold up. ;)
Just thought id throw that out there before someone started complaining about how rampant patent lawsuits can be
Actually Kodak patented "You push the button we'll do the rest" a hundred years ago. I think Amazon has some 'splaining to do....
Kodak has a lot of patents that relate to digital photography, some of which date back to the 1960s regarding technology they developed for film cameras or film processing. But all the big camera and digital camera manufacturers cross license each other's patent portfolios, usually on an entire portfolio to entire portfolio basis, with no money being exchanged - it's all very convenient for them, but I bet it's hell if a new company wanted to get into the business.
What is probably happening here is that Kodak wants access to some Sony patents, and needs to leverage the patents they have to get access to it. This is probably just a legal ploy to get Sony back to the bargaining table.
Disclaimer:
Even though I'm currently on contract at Kodak, I don't have any inside information on this case and I'm not involved in digital still cameras. I just know what they told us in the "why you need to apply for patents on your work" lecture.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Before raking Kodak over the coals, has anybody bothered to check and see if maybe all the other digital camera manufdacturers are already licensing Kodak's patents?
Anyone here remeber when Polaroid sued Kodak for patent infringment on their instant cameras ? Polaroid made sure to wait nice and long unil Kodak instant cameras were everwhere,then ZAP, Actually If I remeber right it wasnt on the camera but rather on the film, Kodak had to buy back all those cameras at like 25 a pop. I wonder if this was Kodaks tactic in suing Sony ?
Who's he? One of the unsung geniuses of the photographic era, he designed many of their scientific film processes -- including the film that was used on Skylab.
He also made some custom extreme-ultraviolet 70mm film for our sounding rocket flight in the early 1990s. The film was called "649 experimental", and it was fabulous. Very sensitive to extreme-ultraviolet, but practically dead in visible light -- I think its effective ASA rating was about 0.05. Yes, that's 2,000 times less sensitive than normal film. And the resolution was fabulous -- about 2,000 line pairs per millimeter -- that's like 0.25 micron pixels. For our application (a telescope platform that was like a prototype of the solar coronal imager on SOHO), it was the bee's knees. Much higher resolution than any electronic detector, and sensitive and reproducible as all get-out.
Thing was -- Kodak told Al not to make us the film. So he (I'm paraphrasing here) gave them the finger, made our film, and retired.
I figured that was the beginning of the end for them -- it was a symptom that they were beginning to restrict and ultimately ditch the very people who were continuing to make them great. A company that big has a lot of momentum -- but, sure enough, they're spiraling down. Not enough innovation.
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First of all, SCO probably was hoping IBM would buy them out.
Secondly, Kodak has been at the forefront of digital imaging technology research from the outset. Kodak has been making the transition from film to digital over the past 15 years. Since film is still used in many industries and in many parts of the world, they are correct not to completely abandon the film business. That doesn't mean they haven't been developing and using cutting edge technology.
Thirdly, SCO didn't invent IP lawsuits. SCO's innovation is in substituting a media circus for solid evidence and good lawyering. There are many IP lawsuits you never hear about because the parties DON'T call press conferences.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
That situation is never funny, but not all bad situations should lead to litigation. You may have spent millions in R&D, but were you working on something non-obvious?
I see a lot of people saying how digital photography was supposedly "totally obvious" in the 1980s. Totally wrong.
I was watching this Japanese documentary (thank goodness it was subtitled!) about canon's development of the digital camera. Some things to keep in mind of the time:
- the processing power to display the image on a computer was so great, it wasn't perceivable to make such an affordable device. Did anyone have 32 bit graphics on their PC in 1983?
- even if the device could be made it would weigh a lot!
According to these canon engineers that developed the digital photo camera, digital photogaphy wasn't perceived as a reality in the early 80s. In fact, the only real r&d (way more r than d) was being put into digital video cams, and that was considered bleeding edge, since a lot of the effort was being put into having a more portable tape-recording video camera.
When Canon finally made a successful prototype, they took it out to a park in Tokyo, where they took a picture of a young lady with a dog. The device was the size of large pizza box! This box weight a lot and took up a lot of power. Sure, it was a prototype, but this was the result of almost 6 years of development.
What we may see as obvious from our 21st century standpoint definitely wasn't so in the early 80s.
I'm not sure when image compression entered the picture, but unless Kodak came up with it before 1981 and it took them until 1987 or longer to get the patent, it would appear that this constitutes prior art - by Sony themselves.
Without the possibility of a patent to let a company make some money off of a new invention for a bit, very few companies would be willing to spend money on research and development. Yes, patents can be misused. But without patents you'd have a "free-rider" problem where everyone wants everyone else to put up the time, money, and resources to develop new things, so that they could then simply copy it. In such an environment, almost nobody will be willing to innovate.
The businesses that will die will be the ones who put money into R&D. That includes those who fund university research. I sincerely doubt in the environment you seem to want we would be able to innovate or create anything. However, since our forefathers got along fine with whale oil and candles, I guess we don't actually need too many of the innovations since then.