Slashdot Mirror
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.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
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.
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)
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.
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.
0 184224
s /tech.h tml
m pep.htm
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.