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."
Should things happen the same way with Microsoft and the hundreds of other "patent-infringers", is now a good time to buy Kodak stock?
...crap like this would help companies realize how messed up the patent situation in the US is right now. Unfortunately, it will probably only increase their zeal for patents and patent-related lawsuits, so that while they might lose a confrontation like this from time to time, they'll also be able to win some.
Settlements have no precedential value, so, the question(s) raised by Kodak's original patent prosecution claim remain... .NET operates in much the same way as Java.
:\
I'm sure other languages do as well...
geek. lawyer.
This entire case was setup by ms
Eh? do you know something I don't?
I know we all hate Microsoft, but blaming them for this is just hurting your credibility.
Or do you blame Microsoft when it rains in the weekend too?
Time to ask the Public Patent Foundation to see if this patent can be overturned because of prior art and obviousness. Sounds like these patents are really good targets for both problems.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Getting a large quantity of Sun stock at the current very low price might be a useful move for Kodak. After all, the only time "buy low, sell high" works is when something is thought to be not very valuable.
Getting about a quarter of Sun's cash on hand might be resisted a lot harder.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
It is absolutely sad to see that a company that develops, implements, and pushes forward a field such as computing, and thefore society, can be sued by a company that created a vaguely similar idea that it abandoned because of their lack of vision.
Cheers... wait, no, no cheers today...
Adolfo
PS. I am guilty of abusing the use of run on sentences.
First off I haven't read the patents so I don't really know, but from everything I've read about this case, apparently these patents cover the idea of "one program asking another program to do something"... Um, So any program that includes a library, and makes calls against that library, as well as any program that makes system/OS/Windowing environment calls illegal... So, that pretty much covers everything.
I've never written a program that didn't at least include some basic system libraries, or language libraries. Every program must by necessity "ask for help" from other programs, whether that be the OS or a library. If this is really what this patent covers, they have successfully patented programming.
Wow, I can't believe this has happened. Since when is Kodak doing remotely software related?
I don't even considered them the experts in their supposed field (taking pictures), Fuji film pwns their asses big time (for me).
Still less software!
I think patent applicants MUST submit a valid implementation of their "novel ideas" to provide a limit of the scope of just how "ingenious" they are.
Come on, the industry is really making a big fuss out of their own ingeniuity (stupidity more like!)
Let's all move to China and India and let these fuck turds sue each other out of business while we just happily develop and develop!
Hell, even Iraq is better!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
The big question is how this will affect various open-source JAVA thingos (like the GNU java GCC compiler thingo)
don't forget that if SUN actually won the case this would become yet another example of how screwed up the patent system is in the US and then potentially threaten SUN's own revenues from patents it has ownership of.
In the end, It's all bovine dung you know
Actually it DOES have to be novel (never been done before) as well as nonobvious. The Constitution only allows patents to be granted to the inventor. Except in fairly rare cases, a johnny-come-lately is not the inventor of a particular technology. He's a reinventor. (which is why we don't issue patents for the wheel when people reinvent it)
Copyrights, OTOH, have no novelty requirement. Independent creation of a work is not infringing, though fairly rare.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Sun settled because it believes the majority of its key customers have mission-critical needs and can't tolerate uncertainty at all (the people who buy the sun hardware, software and services).
This is why Kodak could get away with this blatant extortionism.
How could Sun settle? IANAL but it seemed like they would easily win an appeal (in a courthouse anywhere but Rochester).
$92 million isn't a lot to avoid a several-year-long ludicrous court case like the one between SCO and IBM.
Does this kill the chance of an open source java implementation from Sun?
They settled, but I would guess that the settlement terms did not include "hey Sun, you can write open source versions of our IP"...
Use Kodak's Contact Form to let them what you think. I did:
As a software developer, I was dismayed to hear about Kodak's decision to sue Sun based upon some bogus software patients. Most software developers think these kinds of patents are causing great harm to the American software developer. Any new feature (even obvious ideas) added to a piece of code could potentially be infringing on someone's intentionally vague software patient. I just read the 3 patents which Kodak has accused Sun of violating. Honestly, I have no idea just what you are claiming to have invented. Of course, that's probably the point.
In addition, Kodak seeks over $1 billion in damages from Sun. This is obscene. Through Java, Sun has revitalized the software industry. You are causing great harm to a company that has done wonderful things for both developers and consumers alike.
In response, I have decided to avoid Kodak products forever more. No more Kodak 35mm film, photo paper or film processing for me. By the way, my next camera will probably be a Canon digital camera. In short, you've sold your last Kodak product to me ever.
I know that my personal boycott of your products will have no measurable effect on Kodak's bottom line, however you have just annoyed over one million Java developers. We take this stuff seriously. I suggest Kodak visit SlashDot, a news site read 3 million times every day to get a feeling for the damage you have inflicted upon yourselves.
Before Kodak reinvents itself as a Intellectual Property (IP) holding company whose business model is to simply sue everyone in sight, I suggest that you investigate another company that has gone down that road before you. SCO, formerly a well respected Unix vendor, has basically given up Unix development and now focuses on very shaking IP lawsuits against vendors (IBM, RedHat) and users of the Linux operating system. With their software patent action, SCO (stock symbol: scox) has lost the goodwill of software developers worldwide. Their stock price has dropped from about $150/share five years ago and now trading at $3.70/share. In short, SCO is on the verge of collapse.
Be smart, don't be a SCO. Develop great products, not bogus IP lawsuits and you may yet avoid SCO's fate.