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Sun and Kodak Settle Out of Court

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the dealing-on-the-sly dept.

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."

7 of 201 comments (clear)

  1. In an ideal world... by DeepHurtn! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...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.

  2. This is bad. by crankyspice · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  3. Time to ask Public Patent Foundation to look by dwheeler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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)
  4. Re:$92M by davecb · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Hmmn, in cash, stock or both?

    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
  5. This has become a sad world to live in by adolfojp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. Re:Now I'm wondering... by jonwil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The big question is how this will affect various open-source JAVA thingos (like the GNU java GCC compiler thingo)

  7. Re:Aieee! by cofaboy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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