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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.
Just when we thought it was safe to put colored pixels on the internet again...
"!"
We're already seeing Pay to play games (MMORPGs) why do I get the feeling some company is going to get sick of patent wars like this and make a new image standard, get everyone onto it then slap on a 1p (2c) charge on each file saved just to screw over people for a few weeks untill the web-standard changes.
I like muppets.
They are putting a 1 cent per pixel toll on all JPEG images. All funds are directed towards global domination.
...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."
Should I not trust SourceForge then? That's kinda antithetical to typical /. ideology, as far as I'm concerned.
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.
Last time I read up on this PNG is not suitable for photo realistic images. This is what JPEG does well - does anyone know of a good alternative?
----
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.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
"!"
That gives motivation to move on to JPEG-2000 and other superiour formats. Of course, those are patented as well already, so let's just get out a pencil and a piece of paper and forget the whole Internet thing...
;-)
Of course, someone will point me to pencil and paper patents now...
...even though the Joint Photographic Experts Group tried to create a format that wasn't encumbered by patents. Where will the madness end?
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.
the past two years, the company has made about 90 percent of its revenue from patent negotiations, and its software has yet to get much of a foothold.
In its fiscal 2003, for instance, software sales were just 8 percent of the company's $53.9 million in sales.
These quotes say that $53.9 million in sales (which is consistent with what I find on Yahoo Financialcomes for 90% from patent negatiations, and 8% from software sales. Nowhere on the net can I find anything about where that other 2% comes from (they don't seem to do any consulting for instance).
Then there's these quotes:
Already, Forgent has reaped nearly $50 million by claiming that one of its patents covers JPEG, the popular standard for digital images.
Then there's Jenkens & Gilchrist, the Dallas-based law firm handling enforcement of the JPEG patent. Under a fee agreement, 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.
The first one says Forgent made $50 million on jpeg patents so far. The last claims the lawyers get half, and that is also $50 million.
Not sure what I should think of a company that doesn't succeed in having it's numbers correctly communicated. I do know however that $50 million is peanuts on a global scale. Looking at Forgent' share price, the stock markets seem to agree with me.
I have a photographic memory for numbers. I know almost a hundred of them.
Check the site yourself, and try to find any pledge from them that the specifications for JPEG or JPEG2000 are safe to use.
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
If you really want to get cool, make a html table with each cell one pixel of the image.. your image is now one big html file!
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
According to the earlier /. article, the patent in question is on run-length coding, and was issued in 1987. Unless it was submarined for a really long time, there's got to be prior art all over the place. If nothing else, the Amiga's IFF ILBM image format uses RLC, and it's been around since 1985, at least.
When was that alledged patent filed? We may as well be patient and wait for it to expire, just like GIF, RSA etc...
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Well, you see it's a whole other and much less subtle deal in Forgent's case.
They acquired a patent portfolio - which includes the patent with royalty-free license in question - from another company called Compression Labs which they bought back in 1997.
Now they're relicensing the patent to cash in on it, and they're suing various digital camera manufacturers - starting with all the "big fish". They're being quite ruthless too, bragging about they're actions even.
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
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.
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.
Changing every GIF to PNG on a site like Slashdot might have been easy even years ago when it was done, but some of us have quite a lot of important data stored in the JPEG format, which does not compress well with lossless PNG (e.g. anatomical photographs for scientific purposes). Just as an example:
It is not a simple matter of:
Well, actually it is, but it would take O(n) time (at least).
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I thought SCO patented extortion.
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The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
But wait; this uses a computer, so it's an entirely new concept... never mind.
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
"I believe this is just more proof that this David and Goliath story is just getting started," said Mannsbach, who said he holds close to 5 percent of Forgent's shares on behalf of clients.
This would be some kind of "American McGee's David Vs Goliath", with a David hooked on heroin and using his sling to tie off when he shoots up... it's definitely some looking-glass version of the story, 'cos I remember the original David being the hero, not an opportunistic parasite.
{Stupid Joke Mode:ON}
:
:
So, now, when's Xiph.org going to add a lossy codec for photorealistic picture in it's OGG software ?
And then we'll start again some kind of "OGG/Twoflower" vs. "WindowsMedia/MS-JPEG-2004.NET" codec war.
{/Stupid Joke Mode:OFF}
Actually, I realy mean it !
According to the foot note of this article,
they don't have a patent for the JPEG compression standart it self,
but for the run lenght encoding (RLE) compression which is used in one of the latest stage of JPEG compression.
Which means two things
- It is not a threat to lossy compression.
All the strenght of JPEG comes from the DCT (discret cosine transforme) and the subsequent quantization, which convert the picture into a stream of more compressible values repetitive values (and thus perfom the actual "lossy" steps).
RLE isn't the only way for compress these values,
One can use algorithms similar to those used in the final steps by Xiph's (!) Speex or by Monkey Audio (=Rice).
So one can imagine that Xiph could easily create a temporary JPEG replacement until some realy better (Wavelet based ?) patent-free format is created.
(Hence my stupid joke at the begining).
- Second thing
There's probably A LOT of prior acts for this patent, as LZW was one of the most popular compression algorithme on the old personnal computers of the 80s.
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...
That chose a patented tech to be nominated to be a industry standards?
The question is when was it filed, not issued.
But I do find it insane that therers no prior art, or infact that it's not an inovative leap becase it's such a minor jump that everyone and his dog has thought of it.
Hell I came up with the idea without much mental stressing, took me a while before I knew what it was called.
But hey, someone else has probably got a patent on escape symbols which are used all over the shop.
If these companies had been using proprietary software, nobody would have known what technologies they were using, so they wouldn't have been sued, would they?
<G/D/R>
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Actually Forgent doesn't own JPEG it owns (according to the last Slashdot article) run-length encoding which is used in many more things than JPEG including fax compression. To say RLE is what makes JPEG would be misleading, to sue people for it would be to sue CD manufactures because you came up with the idea of making the disk a circle shape. Now what RLE is, is basically counting the number of repeating symbols, in a line, in a data stream, and replacing that sequence with a special symbol that basically says "there are 352 X's here" or "352X" etc. That basically means Forgent is not only a pile of shit, they are 352shit. Looking at the DCT algorithm in JPEG it is a masterful weave of mathematical genius as beautiful as the scantily glad Victorias secret models it purveys to millions around the world and had Forgents team of dedicated masters spent years perfecting this and had they bled their souls and bodies daily into the project i might find it in me to see an ounce of respect and maybe they would deserve some royalties from those who would use the algorithm for solely commercial gain. but they don't and they didn't. They bought RLE and now they want to milk the world for a 'technology' even a judge could understand!
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. :-)
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
"Basically, Microsoft is going to use the legal system to shut down open-source software," said Gary Campbell, then vice president of strategic architecture in HP's office of the chief technology officer, in a memo to several HP executives. "Microsoft could attack open-source software for patent infringements against (computer makers), Linux distributors, and, least likely, open-source developers."
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5276901.html
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.
My theory about these recent cases of a patent parasite starting out suing some big company, such as Disney, is that they approach the big company, offer them something in exchange for "licensing" their patent, just so they can say "these guys signed, so you little guys have no chance". Notice the terms of the agreement are always confidential, so for all we know the big company could have paid basically nothing for the license, and may even be collecting a fee so their name could be used in the patent campaign. But the little guys will pay right up, fearing a huge lawsuit that even a huge company couldn't seem to win.
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).
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.
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.
Shouldn't that patent be expiring on Oct. 6, 2004? If so, this won't be an issue for very long.
Ok, this is just bull. Please point to the JPEG's on a TiVo. I'll wait...
*ding*
There aren't any. All the icons (the balls, the star, network logos, the "blue wiener", etc.), and loopsets (i.e. slide shows like the little tivo guy in the upper left corner) are PNG formated images. I don't think Tivo would've changed to JPEG in the last few years. Everything else is an MPEG2 or raw graphics written onto the overlay (eg. the menu borders.) Fonts are standard true-type fonts -- non-compressed as I recall. (even "easily" replacable.)
[I don't expect anyone from Tivo, Inc. to step up to answer exactly how they do all the gfx.]
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.
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
Here's the sizes for my antialiased KDE desktop with an xterm and firefox open on it.
Original commenter looks right to me. Interesting.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.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.