Kodak vs. Sun Java Trial Date Set

sirshannon writes "CNET News.com.com.com.com is reporting that the Kodak vs. Sun trial date has been set for September 15. Kodak claims that Java infringes on 3 patents they hold and have been trying to "resolve" the issue for 4 years or so. More info here."

Comments

Kodak v. Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be a case of overexposure.

This is so sad...

[phunster]

These are two companies on the ropes. One of them has decided that litigation is a viable survival strategy. Say what you will about either of these companies, this litigation is not a good thing for either of them.

Re:This is so sad...

[Zocalo]

Kodak's not just on the ropes - it's practically on the floor having seriously missed the digital photography boat after PhotoCD went nowhere. This isn't the only patent case that Kodak is involved in at the moment either. There is an ongoing spat with Sony over patent violations as well where both companies have issued suits against the other about infringements pertaining to digital cameras and related technologies. In addition Kodak has been named as one of 31 defendents in a case over the use of a JPEG related patent that Forgent claims to own.

As usual, I'm betting on the lawyers being the only winners while the companies themselves suffer death by a thousand paper cuts from all of the legal documents...

Re:This is so sad...

[njcoder]

Just wonder why you say this. The other day I was just curious about Sun's lawsuits and did a few searches. The majority of any Sun info I found were related to their Microsoft trials. Those were all contract and anti trust trials. Not patent trials. I don't think it was bad of sun to spend the time and money to help label MS as a monopoly and point out their anti-competitive practices. They've put a lot of companies out of business and it's good that Sun stood up to them. It's a shame people never recognized that what Sun was fighting for benefitted many independant software companies, not just sun. Maybe if they received that kind of support they never would have settled.

If it is the MS trials you are reffering too, you obviously have your head shoved up way to far up your MCSE ass.

There were some trademark related ones, or threats of, over Java. They were just enforcing the fact that people can't call something Java or 100% Java compatible unless it's been tested as such. This is a good thing for the developer community that needs to rely on the claims of something being 100% pure java.

The only one I found regarding patents was related to Kingston which Sun later dropped. A stupid decision to start the suit in my opinion.

You want to talk about big patent lawsuits you're looking at the wrong tech company identified by three letters. Even MS is taking big blue's cue and building a patent portfolio to start raising revenue.

Read this interesting bit on how IBM tried to bully Sun out of $10 million in it's early days."

My own introduction to the realities of the patent system came in the 1980s, when my client, Sun Microsystems--then a small company--was accused by IBM of patent infringement. Threatening a massive lawsuit, IBM demanded a meeting to present its claims. Fourteen IBM lawyers and their assistants, all clad in the requisite dark blue suits, crowded into the largest conference room Sun had.

The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM's notorious "fat lines" patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process.

After IBM's presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on (without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues--all of whom had both engineering and law degrees--took to the whiteboard with markers, methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM's claims. We used phrases like: "You must be kidding," and "You ought to be ashamed." But the IBM team showed no emotion, save outright indifference. Confidently, we proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun's technology infringed even that one.

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.

In corporate America, this type of shakedown is repeated weekly. The patent as stimulant to invention has long since given way to the patent as blunt instrument for establishing an innovation stranglehold.

Gary Reback

what's the non-obvious innovation here?

[belmolis]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see what the non-obvious innovations are in these patents. The first one, for example, seems to describe a perfectly ordinary object system, no different from what has been in languages Smalltalk, C++, and CLOS for twenty years or more. The fact that the object system appears to be intended specifically for management of certain types of data doesn't make it any more innovative. Not that Sun's recent behavior makes me like them, but I wonder if Kodak's patents are valid.

Same old same old...

[inphinity]

From the patent text: "Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types"

Is it me, or does this summary feel suspiciously like every other programming language ever written? It seems to me that core concepts fundamental to any language shouldn't be a valid basis for IP...

patents

[jlechem]

Everyone knows patents are bad blah blah blah but let's take a look at these patents in question.

5,206,951 - Integration of data between typed objects by mutual, direct invocation between object managers corresponding to object types

5,421,012 - Multitasking computer system for integrating the operation of different application programs which manipulate data objects of different types

5,226,161 - Integration of data between typed data structures by mutual direct invocation between data managers corresponding to data types .

This just looks like object oriented programming to me. So how can they sue SUN over Java. I was under the impression you couldn't patent things like this.

Re:patents

[Minna Kirai]

I was under the impression you couldn't patent things like this.

I guess you're new to Slashdot, because we've been complaining about the whole idea of software patents for years.

The fact is, you can't write any nontrivial computer program without infringing on multiple patents.

You point out that these "inventions" seem obvious. That's certainly true today, and maybe was true back when the patents were filed (some are 10+ years old). But looking at the validity of patents from the highest level, there's actually a factor much more important than obviousness: "Would the 'inventor' have created and then not hidden this thing if she didn't anticipate patent protection?"

If the answer is yes, then by the US Constitution, patents shouldn't apply. (Constitution states that Intellectual Property is allowed only to "promote progress of science and useful arts").

That's why medicines should be patentable (because few people will go through the enormous investment to test a drug if generics can copy it immediately) but most software and business practices (like Amazon's "One Click") shouldn't be (because Amazon would've invented and implemented that system regardless of having patent protection)

Re:Great.

[saden1]

Everyone probably knows that Kodak was falling off but it has just reach a new low. Looking at the patents they claim they own you'll note that every program every written that makes use of an object manager is infringing on their patent. This patent is totally unenforceable. And I can honestly say with confidence that there is definitely prior art out there.

Kodak is sinking and needs management change.

Re:The patents

[ites]

Because there are only two companies that promote and sell OOPS languages on a large scale. 1: Microsoft. 2: Sun.

When launching patent lawsuits, it is generally best to go after smaller players first. If Sun were to accept Kodak's patents (or were to lose the court action), Kodak would have a better basis for going after Microsoft.

They're not going to sue the C++ standards committee because it won't earn them anything except hostility.

Do companies...

[Phidoux]

...in the USA ever take time off from their busy legal schedules to do business?

Re:Oak existed before 1993

[servoled]

To bad the 1993 and 1995 dates are meaningless as far as prior art is concerned. The important dates are the filing dates and priotity dates, the issue date does not matter. All three patents have priority to United States patent application Ser. No. 07/088,622 entitled Data Integration by Object Management by Dana Khoyi et al., filed Aug. 21, 1987.

So, for an item to qualify as prior art, it must be data prior to August 21, 1987 which by the dates you have given, Oak does not meet.