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."

Comments

This Just In

[nonewshere]

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

Politicians wake up

[t_allardyce]

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.

Re:Gimp (in DEEP trouble)

[gosand]

I know gimp doesn't have gif native because of the license but does have JPEG. Does this mean that they are going to get targeted for using JPEG?

Yes, Gimp is in deep trouble. Rumor has it they'll have to fork over 50% of their profits.

Re:Submarine patents?

[astellar]

"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