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Forgent Squeezing Money Out Of JPEG, Other Patents
deman1985 writes "Forbes reports that Forgent Networks, Inc., developer of scheduling software and holder of a number of technology patents, has settled with both Adobe and Sony for JPEG patent infringement and is going after numerous others to collect their fair share of royalties. The company also plans to go after PVR companies, including TiVo Inc, and MP3 player makers for other various patents they claim to hold. Sounds like more fun in the courts for everyone!" We previously reported on Forgent's JPEG patent shenanigans back in April.
...to Repeat It. We all remember the problems with GIF just few years ago. We solved them changing every single image on the Internet to JPEG. We all have to admit that it was foolish. We're weak on logic, that's the trouble with us. We're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
i simply won't happen, for many if it ain't broken don't fix it. Perhaps it's possible to implement new standards into web browser quickly but what about other equipments? Digital camera, Photo develping station, and even high end tv that does jpg slideshow, not all can be fixed with a firmware update, if i am a ceo of sony, i too would rather pay a small fee to stay the way it is. Big company like sony won't take the risk and who cares what small company choose to do.
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
I'm so sick of reading companies going after other companies on stupid patents.
/. and the first news is someone getting sued over JPEG. What a way to ruin my day.
:-(
I mean, I start my day on
A business of just hoarding ideas and extracting patents, while not producing any real products is really not a business. My opinion (and a few million others) is just shut them down, dammit.
But, what will my rant here do? It won't help anyone.
Anyway, I just end up depressed.
While not a real solution to the people getting sued, I at least have a temporary solution for myself: untick YRO from my preferences.
Sorry to the people affected by the law suites, you have my thoughts.
The big ones are not much better. If you are a small company with a product, IBM, Apple, Microsoft etc will just as happily use their patents against you if you happen to annoy them enough (or if they think they can extract enough pocket change from you). And the only reason that we have this silly system of software patents that allows this kind of racketeering, is exactly because the big companies pushed the patent offices and the courts to accept these kinds of patents.
They're not the ones to pity, as it's mainly their fault we're stuck with the system as it is.
Donate free food here
I would like to agree, and certainly agree with the spriti of what you're saying, but there is a practical problem too.
Suppose I succesfully work out all the problems and design the perfect cold fusion-based reactor. There is no possible way for me to implement it - I have to go to an energy company to get a power plant built (at the very least, a bank who will loan me the utter fortune I require to construct it).
At this point, under the changes you suggest the device is not patentable since it has not yet been implemented. What is to stop an unscrupulous energy company, or bank, or indeed anyone who gets wind of it from taking my design and implementing it themselves with no further input from me? Worse still, once they have the implementation it is they who will profit from obtaining a patent, not me.
So the "no patent without implementation" idea is flawed. It's a shame, because it sounds like a good way out. But it wouldn't work as described.
Incidently, I refused to have my name listed as the co-inventer on a patent my company wanted to file because I considered it so trivial as to be silly. I don't want my name associated with patent abuse, and if more people took that approach this problem simply wouldn't occur. That's a pipe-dream though.
Cheers,
Ian
Check the site [jpeg.org] yourself, and try to find any pledge from them that the specifications for JPEG or JPEG2000 are safe to use.
In a day and age when it isn't safe to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or put out some toys for kids to play with while their parents do business with you, how do you expect them to make such a pledge?
KFG
The parasite business model. Companies that buy or create patents then just sue everyone. We've seen SCO and Unisys (LZW patent), this sort of action seems to suggest a failing in their product line.
I have no problem with companies protecting their innovative ideas to ensure their time and money invested is rewarded.
I believe that you should only be able to defend patents and your inventions if you actually produce a product based upon them.
Why should the standards group state that use of the specification will remain free from litigation?
Stating it doesn't mean that it is the case. They might have agreements from everybody involved in the making of the standard that they are granting a royalty free useage of all patents for the use of the standard (though I don't know this to be the case), but what can they do if someone decides to sue?
As far as I'm aware, if I have a patent on flattening meat with a pencil and a sheet of paper, I could go to Adobe and say that their use of JPEG related things infringes on my patent. The fact that it doesn't is (somewhat) irrelevent. What is relevent is that the JPEG group can't gaurentee that I won't file a frivilous lawsuit. What would happen if I bought a relevent patent from some other company (perhaps that was going under) and now I do have a relevent patent to leverage? What about submerine patents? What about patents which can be argued by some to be relevent and by others not to be? Even if all the companies involved in the original standard agreed to freely liscense their patents or even put them in the public domain, there are still several ways things could turn sour. And now you want the standards body to say that use of the specification will remain free from litigation after litigation has begun? Do empty, unenforcible, obviously hollow and false promises comfort you? Did you buy into SCOs argument of "Look, several linux companies won't indemnify their users, so our side must be right" argument?
A standards body can't speak for the actions of people completely uninvolved with it. I don't likee empty promises, and I don't like that making them matters. This all reminds me of a joke: Two politicians are talking to eachother and on of them says "Hey, you're lying!" to which the other replied "Yes, but hear me out."
On another note, given the nature of the site, it woludln't really make sense for the statement you're looking for to be there. Not even if they had the power to make it.
Big companies are held at bay by their competitions portfolios. If you are in a big company, especially Japanese, you are probably being asked to produce x patents per year. So what if they are not entirely relevant. So long as they are arguable and can tie a company up in court if they ever try to sue you.
So IBM and Apple don't get together when they infringe. Because they always infringe each other. They get together when one gets pissed off for some reason. Or somebody hired new lawyers that didn't know the game...
What's the point of this ridiculous rant? Simple. Don't let this happen wherever you live. Please. I might move there some day, just so I can continue in my chosen profession.
As for your question... I don't think you should worry. If anyone bothers you, you can move your project somewhere else at that time. You have no obligation to care about this country's ridiculous IP laws.
Cheers!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
it's becoming standard practice to quietly hold onto patents as long as possible, delighting in each new victim that violates them. Then, when the profit margin reaches critical mass, send in the legal hounds. I'm assuming the available DB of patents is so large and uses a wide range of semantics that doing an effective search with the use of each new (or old, even) technology is pretty tough.
"Don't waste your time or time will waste you" -MUSE
It really depends what you are taking a screenshot of. A game screen (probably the most common screenshot type in existance) is going to be horrible with PNG unless you're taking screenshots of Pong. Even desktops are bad unless you unset that nifty photographic background and or pictures on a webbrowser etc...
The point is, once the complexity of the image goes above "very simple" JPEG is going to give you a smaller file nearly every time. There are precious few images worth saving as a file that are "very simple". Worse, PNG ramps up in size very quickly as the complexity increases, which is what the original poster was talking about.
I read the internet for the articles.
Patents allow startups with no implemenation or funding or manufacturing, to show thier idea to investors so they can bring it to market. Without this capability many smaller companies couldn't get started. A large company with much capability would steal the idea an put it in volume production before the inventor could get a good prototype working. Actual product development is expensive, so without patent protection you limit new ideas to those who already have a lot of money.
First rule for patent reform: Do NOT extend the term of protection. Nothing else is worth compromising on this one thing.
I would favor a reduction to 10 years - if you can't get to market in that time and make a buck, you're probably scamming your investors anyway.
Jpegs are fine for publishing photos, and there's a good reason while digital cameras use them but (of course) they shouldn't be used while editing if you want to save incrementally - the file size gets samller each time, as does the amount of information in the file.
Chris
I'm also against software patents but I think it's too simple an explanation to blame the large corporations only. Yes, the big organizations typically want software patents, and I see them how they push very hard for software patents in the EU where we have that ongoing legislative process.
However, I also see the major mistake of small and medium-sized enterprises: They don't act. Large corporations understand that politics affect business, so they view political activities as part of their business. Small and medium-sized enterprises are usually run by people who believe that it's "prudent" to focus on the "core business" and not to do anything serious on the political front.
The narrowmindedness and ignorance of most small and medium-sized enterprises makes it very easy for the large corporations to get what they want, and to defend it later.
Look at most industry associations: They claim to speak on behalf of numerous small companies but are pretty much under the control of a few large members. An organization like the SIIA should fight against software patents every day. It should be their #1 priority because nothing is a bigger business risk to software companies than those absurd software patents. Instead, the SIIA just asks for more funds to be provided to the USPTO. Sure, with more resources, the USPTO may be able to examine patent applications more carefully. Still the real solution is to do away with patents on computer program logic, i.e. mental steps. And where are the organizations, except for some open source and civil rights organizations, that truly fight against software patents?
Maybe, at the end of the day, many small and medium-sized enterprises just pay the price for political ignorance and inactivity. Right now, there would be an excellent chance to get software patents abolished in the EU, and that would be a signal for other regions of the world (especially if things work out well for the EU, and I'm quite sure they would because software patents stifle innovation and adversely affect economic growth).
My objection is that the current patent system doesn't force you to actually prove you have worked out all the problems with a cold-fusion-based reactor. All you have to do is to write down some vague ideas about how it might work. Then you go and sue the folks who actually put in the sweat to really solve the problems and make it work. So much easier getting money this way than all that hard work actually coming up with inventions that work.
Anyone else notice how Sony and Adobe ruthlessly pursue people who infringe their copyrights, and spend millions on useless, counterproductive DRM, but cough up millions to these invalid patent claimjumpers?
--
make install -not war
From a patent perspective, the assemblers on IBM mainframes in the 60's had an assembler directives like this:
LABEL DC CL132'A'
Basically, what this is: Declare Constant, Character Lenth 132, filled with 'A'. It is a Run Length Encoding, and it preceded GIF, JPEG, etc... by more than 15 years.
Likewise, the dup directive was available in PC assemblers long before RLE was patented.
So, anyone with the guts to fight these guys could easily invalidate their patent with prior art. The idea of run length encoding as a compression technique occurred to me when I was about 12, and even then I didn't think it particularly noteworthy.
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