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Sun and Kodak Settle Out of Court
prostoalex writes "The patent dispute between Eastman Kodak and Sun Microsystems in regards to three patents that EK claimed Sun was violating with Java, came to an end. Thursday afternoon Associated Press announced the companies settled out of court with terms of the deal unclear yet. Before Eastman Kodak was looking for $1.06 billion in damages."
According to news.com.com, it looks like Kodak is getting $92M out of Sun. Who's next?
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
Groklaw has the story also:0 0410071
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2
.NET is apparently safe, as according to the news.com.com article, MS already has a license for Kodak's patents.
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These patents (5,206,951, 5,421,012 and 5,226,161) are so basic, they cover large amounts of OO software. According to this decision, Kodak now owns CORBA, COM, large parts of Linux, Apache, and pretty much every other large piece of software ever written.
That's exactly my thinking. The one filed in 1993 actually describes the virtual machine that manages objects capable of working with different data structures but exposing the same API, which is pretty much any virtual machine out there, and can be extended to the operating system as a whole.
Kodak's case is strong, since the patents do include the existing OS/VM implementations and describe improvements over existing technologies. Remember: the technology doesn't have to be new to be patented, it just has to extend the technology in a way that's not obvious at the time of filing. That's what I got from my hundreds-dollars-per-hour patent briefing that my employed had for its R&D people.
Microsoft has a license from Kodak for .net. Sun has a license from Kodak for Sun's engine. Sun has Star Office cleared of Microsoft's embrace, at least for now. Wait until the "standards" get published and the Open Office standard can not, of course, be accepted, because it is potentially encumbered.
.net? Not me.
The irony of it all is that this is exactly what Microsoft has been doing from the beginning. Let someone develop it cheap, then if the original developers don't give it to Bill cheap, Bill takes it.
Hello
Three patents can very well be worth a billion, but appearantly these weren't, otherwise Kodak wouldn't have settled. If your local arsonist asks for ten grand in return for his "fire protection insurance", it's up to you to decide whether that protection is worth the money, or whether to call the police. This is just the same thing, except it's not illegal to blackmail corporations on the basis of frivolous patent claims, and the police won't return your call.
Even if Kodak had gained nothing on this stunt, their mere wielding of the software patent weapon in public constitutes a threat to the economic safety of almost anyone. It would be like the arsonist getting away with it just because he was unable to "sell" any insurances, and later failed to demonstrate the need for one. Is blackmailing ok just because the victim doesn't get to pay exactly the amount asked for initially?
As someone pointed out in an earlier thread (either here or on Groklaw), anybody supporting Kodak by buying their shares or their products is an accomplice to whatever Kodak does. It's up to each individual to decide whether that involvement can be justified.
I would think that prior art for this patent would be relatively easy to find, so I'm wondering what the hell Sun is up to.
.NET, Novell with Mono.
This will probably lend credence to the patent claim, so not only does Sun get Kodak off their backs, they probably also get a few lawsuits nicely directed at some of their competitors.. MS with
'Heres 92 mil, by the way - you may wanna check out THESE particular companies as well.'
Are we speaking in terms of consumer products? I'm a commercial Photographer and i can gareentee that the Sinare 4x5 digital cameras we have coupled with the Sinar capture software are crisper and more true to the original product than are chromes. There are lots of Skeptics out there i know. We've done tests and test. We resorted to capturing an image (identical) with both Film and digital and printing high quality Kodak Approval Prints for both medias. We let the Clients decide. we haven't shot film in almost a year.
Who needs film anymore? The movie industy and film students do. Also, anyone interested in professional photography.
While the market for film is declining its still has a very strong base.
MS already has licenses from Kodak, Sun has acquired non-transferable rights, so IBM is next I guess? Is Kodak stupid enough to do that?
Now what is worse is that a whole bunch of FOSS supporting firms can be pulled to court with this nonsense.
So is Java lost for the US until 2007? (the pattents were filed in 1987 I believe)
You can't handle the truth.
As public companies, won't the settlement have to be disclosed when they submit their financials?
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
Kodak didn't file the original patents...Wang Labs did. Presumably Kodak bought them up when Wang was trying to re-invent itself after going through bankruptcy in the early 90's. They probably were selling shit off to raise cash.
Yeah, but ok ... Sun lost $92M due to a patent in this case.
How much does Sun make -because- of patents? Not just in royalties and lawsuits but in implied value?
Something tells me Sun is happy to have patents stay around.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
It's far, far worse than that... Kodak didn't even create the idea... merely bought it from a company that went belly up years ago...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
How can 3 patents be worth 1.06$ billion dollars?
Kodak has lost more than that by infringing one patent. They were the loser in the largest patent lawsuit the world has ever seen, Polaroid v Kodak.
Polaroid had a patent on instant film development, yet they waited to file their lawsuit until Kodak had built new factories to build instant cameras, and actually had the product in stores. That way, when the lawsuit finally happened, Kodak was out not only $billion + in damages, but also more billions of investment and hiring that they then couldn't used.
Obviously, that damaging incident taught Kodak the power of patent abuse, and they've sworn to never again be on the losing side of it.
There seems to be a lot of posts that go something like, "this looks like a good patent for XXXXXX to try to fight." While the work these groups do is noble and all, they can't be expected to challenge more than a handful of patents a year. It's not easy work. Not to mention the lawyers hired by Kodak, Sun, MS, etc... are among the best in the world.
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What we need is more of the people right here to step up and do it themselves. How?
Read this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157
Or apply here:
http://www.piercelaw.edu/
Or here:
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/cenpro/program
Then take this:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/
The only way to fix the problems is to have the smartest people doing work the way "should" be done. Go work for the USPTO, and refuse to grant patents that aren't novel. Or work for a firm that challenges existing patents. Do something.
If you need incentive, while you're complaining about Programmers and Engineers not being hired, IP is the single fastest growing area of the law, and highest paid. If you pass the Patent Bar, you WILL get a job...a good job.
Not exactly. Read news.com.com .Net that's similar to Java. However, the software giant, like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, has licensed Kodak's patents, Lanzillo said. "
"Microsoft has software called
If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.
I imagine he's using some very high-end equipment, though.