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31 Lawsuits Filed Over Alleged JPEG Patent
dcrouch writes "Compression Labs has initiated a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas against 31 major companies for infringement of its 4,698,672 patent. The patent, filed in 1986, includes 46 claims for various embodiments of digital signal compression technology and reportedly covers JPEG compression. From the dates on the face of the patent, it appears that it will expire in October 2004. This looming date may have prompted the suit. Compression Labs will certainly have a fight on its hands. A major question will be why the patentee waited so long to stake its claim. The Eastern District of Texas court has established special patent rules that help speed the progression of litigation."
Jpeg is declared a lossey compression format in 2 ways now. 1) Image quality is degraded 2) your bank balance is degraded if you are sued for infringing on its patents
... Sony electronics was sued today over its use of 8-track tapes.
Maybe. But given the two formats are for such completely different purposes I fail to see how this is relevant. PNG is much more obviously a competitor for GIF than for JPG.
It's all pr0n to me.
Or are they just hoping all of IBM's lawyers are tied up with SCO?
Isn't that why IBM is an international company - because they can't fit all their lawyers in the USA?
Reaches for tinfoil - why wan't Microsoft listed? Are there no use jpeg' used in Windows?
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
I vote we all move to ASCII art!
Could someone (maybe a senator?) explain to me: if the entire purpose of patents is to promote innovation and provide an incentive to innovate then WTF does any new innovation require the inventor to spend 3 years to check that it doesnt infringe 10,000 patents? In the computer world things change on a weekly basis, can we _please_ make patents expire much much faster and stop all this stupid non-sense with people having ownership of ideas that play a totally obvious role in our lifes or where infact covered by another idea: case study: pop-up windows! dont make me fucking laugh this should have been thrown out of court within 30 seconds, one click shopping:
ME: Hi,
SHOPKEEPER: Hey Theo how can i help you?
ME: id like this and that please,
SHOPKEEPER: Certainly ill charge it to your tab?
now if you came into MY court with this patent mr amazon i would fucking get down from my stand and BEAT YOU WITH MY GAVEL! fuck you!
damit patents piss me off so much.
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Maybe they might go after the end users SCO-style.
"How many JPEGs do I have on my hardrive?"
"Does it apply to MPEGs aswell?"
"Would a judge entertain a porn as free speech argument?"
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
Naaah, that's not the way to go. 1. Pollute the atmosphere as much as you can. 2. Create a portable breathing device that filters the atmosphere. 3. Have people pay for the service (subscription for beathing clean air), not the device ! 4. If the people fail to renew their subscription, lock up the device. They'll find one way or another to pay when they begin to stifle... 5. Profit !!! After all, it already worked for water. Why not do it with air ?
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
surprise witnesses, each more surprising than the last. I tell you, the judge won't know what hit him.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
s/video conferencing hardware/operating systems/
s/August 2001/August 2002/
s/Video Telecom, or VTel/Caldera/
s/Forgent/SCO/
s/a video technology firm/litigious bastards/
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
BURN ALL JPEGS!
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
Yes, Gimp is in deep trouble. Rumor has it they'll have to fork over 50% of their profits.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
If I want to invent something...
I woke up this morning and I want to invent something...hmmmmm....let's see.....oh yhea an account....yheah that's it an account...
Oh! it's already done? By the credit card companies. Oh I'll just add the word Internet....
That's one click shopping you say?
No problemo I'll just add "wireless netwoking". coolio off tho the patent office I say. Then off to bed.
Now that was a hard days work. I wonder what I will inv3nt tomorrow? Yeah that's it I'll replace the vowels with numbers and patent that as a security feature.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
"There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now." Douglas Adams. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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I'm afraid I don't accept Webster as an authority - he doesn't even know how to spell 'colour' properly.
In other news, the entire US Congress was found to have absolutely no clue as to the meaning of the words "The Congress shall have power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Arthur Yes, I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call much attention to them had you? I man like actually telling anybody or anything!
Prosser The plans were on display.
Arthur Hah, and how many average members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around to the local planning office of an evening. It's not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in one on the off chance that some raving beurocrat had wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren't exactly immediately obvious to the eye, were they?
Prosser That depends where you were looking.
Arthur I eventually had to go down to the cellar.
Prosser That's the display department.
Arthur With a torch!
Prosser The lights had...probably gone.
Arthur So had the stairs.
Prosser Well, you found the notice, didn't you?
Arthur Yes, it was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard!". Ever thought of going into advertising?