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Sony Sued for Blu-Ray Patent Violation
Jaidan writes "According to a Gamespot article, a California-based company named Target Technology is suing Sony over patents it allegedly holds for silver based reflective surfaces. The suit claims that products marketed under the Blu-ray name infringe on a patent it owns for reflective layer materials in optical discs. Target is seeking a permanent injunction preventing Sony from violating its patent rights in the future, as well as damages with interest, multiplied due to what it characterizes as deliberate and willful infringement. ' The patent addresses what Target called a need for specific types of silver-based alloys with the advantages (but not the price) of gold. According to the patent, the alloys are also more resistant to corrosion than pure silver. Target does not specify in its suit whether it believes all of Sony's Blu-ray discs infringe on its patent, or the suit applies to just a portion of the discs manufactured. The patent was filed in April of 2004 and granted in March of 2006.'"
Does this mean that BluRay capabilities will be (purely by coincidence) removed from the PlayStation 4 as Sony execs try to tell us that high-capacity disks are so "last gen?"
There isn't enough information here to form an intelligent position.
Given that Target is only suing Sony over Blu-Ray, and not suing any other organizations over CDs, DVDs, GD-ROMs, Game Discs, HD-DVDs, or FMD-ROMs (!), it's possible (however unlikely) that this is actually an example of patents working the way they should. That is, Target may have a patent on an actual technology; a specific method of producing a reflective layer that is superior and/or cheaper than other methods. If that's the case, then this is exactly how patents are supposed to work.
Alternatively, of course, Target may have patented an obvious evolution of well-established technologies, in which case this is just another patent troll. They could be holding off on suing other companies until they've set some sort of precedent with Sony.
The actual patent begins by specifying an alloy of silver an yttrium, but the further claims also (apparently) expand that claim by including alloys with other elements (such as bismuth and tin). I don't have the time right now to examine the patent in great detail; but a skim makes it look like they patented a specific method for a high-reflectivity layer thats cheaper than other methods of equivalent reflectivity. They then expand this idea to include all the derivative technologies of using this method (single & dual layer discs, write-only discs, write-once disc, re-writeable discs, etc).
The problem is I don't have enough familiarity with the technology to know if this is a non-obvious development or not. If it is non-obvious, then more power to them. Protecting your novel idea with a patent is fair play. If, of course, it's just the optical disc equivalent of "[X], but on the INTERNET and called i[X]," then I hope they get counter-sued into oblivion.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Don't argue with this guy! Patent is his middle, err, last name.
I put the 't' in electrical engineering.
However, every now and then, we get stuck in some sort of paradox, like when Jack Thompson and Microsoft are facing each other, and we have to take sides...
Next up:
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
After doing a little looking at thier site, Target Technology gets their name because they do actually make products with this technology. The make silver alloy targets for sputtering the metal onto optical discs, and their targets are currently used manufacture of many DVD-R's and other optical discs. I would guess (though I don't have enough information to be sure) that they think Sony looked at the compostion of their targets, said "hey, these work really well," and decided to make their own targets of the same compesition for their Blu-ray discs. True or not, I have no idea, but it is at least possible a valid patent case. It's not like this is just an company who hoards patents and licenses them, they actually make products based off of those patents.