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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."
That's a loaded question. When I create audio files, the answer is: I'd absolutely store wav (and similar) files on my hard drive. Why would I ever want a compressed master?
When I rip a CD, I store them as MP3's. The point is that original files shouldn't be compressed using a lossy format (unless you don't care...I do). When it's time to distribute the file, sure, crunch it down.
-Turkey
To save diskspace, perhaps?
It's your master! You don't want a lossy compressed master!... that's insane!
Note how the high-quality lossy jpegs are indistuingishable from the lossless formats...
Of course they are distinguishable, they're "lossy". Blow them up, manipulate them, do whatever you do, yeah, if you just look at them they're indistinguishable, but if you do anything else with them, the smashed-up hard edges, "ringing" artifacts, and all that stuff will quickly cause problems.
Ugh. I hate asking people for photos or clipart for websites because I know they'll do something to it to make it "easier to email".
Cropping, framing, adjusting the contrast and colours for a final image is horrible once somebody's done this to an image.
Until a few years ago, US patents were not published until granted and the term was 17 years from grant. Consequently, an application could be kept pending for 20 years or more by filing continuation and continuation in part applications, all of which would have been secret. The aim was for the patent to emerge into a well developed industry to maximise potential income. Patents obtained with this tactic are what are referred to as submarine patents.
Now almost all US patent applications are published 18 months from the filing/priority date and the term is 20 years from the filing date. Thus, the existence of the application is public and delaying grant does not push the expiry date into the future, thereby removing the rationale for submarine patents.