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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.
This has me thinking about the patent game large companies play. Take IBM, Apple, Microsoft - all with gigantic patent portfolios, and products that use many of them (and probably many of those of the other companies too). When IBM infringes on an Apple patent, they get together, cross license patents under certain conditions, and go on their merry way.
This is all fine as a defense against a company that actually has a product. But take something like these smaller companies, who only own a patent portfolio, or perhaps one big patent altogether, and no products. They find that Adobe infringes on their patent and... Adobe have no recourse. No cross licensing to be done as the smaller company has no product. The smaller company may even be privately owned, so there's no chance of a simple cheap buyout.
While we're all looking at MS, Apple, IBM, Adobe etc and going "tsk! omg!" as they acquire yet another silly patent, they're not necessarily the ones who're going to be a pain in the butt about it, it's the smaller rogues like Forgent, or Acacia etc.
As someone else already noted, PNG and JPEG cannot compare in their use or compression. JPEG's advantage has always been its ability to compress photographic (non computer generated, generally) images down to fractions of their bitmapped size. PNG is a lot like GIF in its design (to my knowledge and experience). It compresses certain things well, but JPEG is still the master of photographs, which is why this could affect the web slightly. There isn't yet a widespread open JPEG-like standard -- maybe there needs to be. Until then, I'm going to continue to use JPEGs because, well, I think this will all blow over just like every other ludicrous software patent we've seen.
"!"
If I could change patent law, I would do the following: Demand proof of damages.
Patents are designed to defend against inventions. If I patent something useful, but don't actually have an implementation, I'm using the system to stifle others, and not really giving anything back.
In order for something to be an invention, it needs to have an implementable form. Sure, I could patent something that I can't make, but if someone else comes along and figures it out independent of me, then I really shouldn't be able to sue them for having the same idea that I did, unless I actually built it.
So IF forgent claims to have a patent, their patent needs to have an implementation which would serve as a test of requiring the patent. Otherwise, it's just an idea without an implementation.
I could try and patent a perpetual motion machine, and might succeed, but if someone else succeeds in building one, they will have figured out the difficult detail that I didn't: how to break the laws of thermodynamics.
And in a completely unrelated note, XP SP2 just finished installing. Only took about 5 minutes. I guess it pre-downloaded today.
Take a high resolution screenshot with any complexity
;-)
Sure - JPG is better for most photos - but sharp edges, text (including high resolution screenshots of text) and the like look much better under png (bit for bit).
Slightly offtopic, but noone seems to have mentioned Unisys yet - soon we may be seeing on GNU a page similar to this one: Why There Are No GIF files on GNU Web Pages
Soon we may need a burn all jpegs day
My pics.
I wrote and maintain an opensource JPEG implementation, so am pondering about potential consequences. Am no big corporation of course, so not likely to be targeted by the extorters, but still.. What would you recommend, given that:
1. I am not a U.S. citizen;
2. The project is hosted on a service under U.S. jurisdiction (SourceForge).
Would it suffice to migrate the project to a non-US service?
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPEG#Potential_patent _issues
The JPEG committee investigated the patent claims in 2002 and found that they were invalidated by prior art. Nevertheless, between 2002 and 2004 Forgent was able to obtain about $90 million by licensing their patent to some 30 companies. In April 2004 Forgent sued 31 other companies to enforce further license payments. In July of the same year, a consortium of 21 large computer companies filed a countersuit, with the goal of invalidating the patent.
I guess the prior art does not stand in court.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
For those who can't use java translators, like me - from Latin Proverbs and locutions:
Pecunia non olet. (Vespasianus)
Money has no smell. Money doesn't stink.
With the aim of replenishing depleted state funds, Vespasianus introduced, among other things, a new tax on public lavatories. When objected to by his son Titus, Vespasianus held a coin collected under that tax law to his son's nose and asked him if it smelled.
-- IANAL, BIPOOTV
The ex-Jenkens lawyers filed a counterclaim to recover millions of dollars in past and possibly future fees they say they're entitled to as the architects of Forgent's patent-licensing strategy.
So basically, these lawyers patented the business model of suing other companies for patent infringement and are now trying to collect royalties on Forgent collecting royalties from the JPEG patent. Follow that?
But it gets better:
Already, Forgent has reaped nearly $50 million...Jenkens receives 50 percent of the revenue from licensing the patent, plus some expenses. The law firm's take so far is an estimated $50 million.
So, let me get this straight:
So basically, they've made no profit on their first $50M in revenues, their lawyers own half of all their subsequent royalties, and their ex-law firm is suing them for whatever is left.
What can I say, but that I'm glad I don't own stock in Forgent.... They may have a patent portfolio, but they don't have a clue.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Isn't there some sort of statute of limitations on these patent issues? If not there should be. It seems to a popular activity for patent-holders lately to wait quietly by while others infringe on their patents. They wait until the company becomes big enough, then they bounce on the offenders like a little fat kid walking through the desert who sees a piece of chocolate cake.
That's what has bothered me from the beginning about SCO (I know it's not a patent issue here, but close enough). Why hadn't anyone said anything about Linux stealing System V code before? It's not like Linux is all that new. It appears that they just waited until someone with deep enough pockets was close enough to Linux that they could attack.
There should be a law enacted where if you know that someone is infringing on one of your patents, you have one or two years to litigate. After that point, your rights to litigation would be revoked. Now it would be difficult to prove prior knowledge of the infringement, but it's better than our current system.
The patent claims the process of Huffman encoding and/or run-length encoding digital signals. The CCITT Group 3 Fax machine standard used run length encoding followed by Huffman encoding to compress the digital signals before transmission. It was issues in 1980, six years before the patent.
I don't understand why any company would capitulate when the prior art is quite as obvious as the digital fax machine. I'll wager that they've even used a fax machine in persuing their claims.