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PUBPAT Makes Progress Against JPEG Patent
The Data Compression News Blog writes "The US Patent Office has granted the Public Patent Foundation's request for a reexamination of the patent
which Forgent Networks is reportedly using to harass anyone that implements the
widely used JPEG format. They have already been challenged by many, but PUBPAT
had the first concrete case with 'prior art'.
In its Order granting PUBPAT's request, the Patent Office found that PUBPAT
raised 'a substantial new question of patentability' regarding every claim of
the the '672 Patent."
The reason the patent holders can keep the money is because the law favors them completely.
Let's say I had a company with reasonable funds (enough to support going to court). I have a patent that looks pretty solid so I ask Sony to pay me a license fee. Sony comes back and offers me a contract that says "we agree to pay this license fee, however, the full amount shall be refunded in the event that the patent is invalidated".
My company would just say "sorry, remove that invalidation clause or we'll sue you for patent infringement and win".
> But it is widely understood among those who deal with these matters that MP3 is
> patent-encumbered and that we should use and encourage others to use the apparently
> unencumbered (and higher quality, besides) Ogg Vorbis instead.
Yes, MPEG was always upfront that they were pooling patents and doing the RAND thing. But I have a question. When do they start expiring? I remember a VCD like tech (OS9-68K based, Phillips, brain cramp on the name now.... CDI?) in the late 1980's and VCD (MPEG1 video, MPEG1 layer 1 audio) itself not much later. MPEG1 layer 2 was the failed Phillips Compact Digital Cassette in what, 1992? Question is what is the date on the patents, especially of course on MPEG 1 layer 3 audio and MPEG2 video. AC3 audio is probably several years newer so the last part of DVD and HD-TV won't be public for a bit.
I'm thinking we need to find out and start a countdown, much like everyone did for RSA and the GIF patents.
Democrat delenda est