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Toshiba Sues Over DVD Patents
angry tapir writes "Toshiba has filed suit in a US court against Imation and several manufacturers and distributors of recordable DVD media for the alleged infringement of its patents. Imation and the other defendant companies named in the complaint do not have license agreements covering recordable DVD media with Toshiba or the DVD6C Licensing Group (DVD6C), and have engaged in the import and sale of recordable DVD media in the US without permission, according to Toshiba."
It appears the link is bad.
http://egotisticaladmin.com
Well it's a good thing we have Bluray to protect us from those evil DVD manufacturers
Toshiba filed suit Thursday in a U.S. court against Imation and several manufacturers and distributors of recordable DVD media for the alleged infringement of its patents.
Toshiba licenses patents essential for meeting DVD format specifications, the company said on Thursday.
Imation and the other defendant companies named in the complaint do not have license agreements covering recordable DVD media with Toshiba or the DVD6C Licensing Group (DVD6C), and have engaged in the import and sale of recordable DVD media in the U.S. without permission, Toshiba said.
DVD6C was set up by nine developers of DVD technology and formats, to license jointly their DVD patents.
Eight companies, including companies in Taiwan and India, have been named as defendants in the suit before the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
Toshiba's complaint seeks damages for past infringement, and requests that the court prohibit the sale, manufacture and import into the U.S. of recordable DVD media by the defendant companies.
The infringing recordable DVD media is sold in the U.S. under the Imation and Memorex brand names, Toshiba said.
Whale
Flash drives are ridiculously cheap, and substantially more convenient. DVD-Rs can either embrace dirt-cheapness and utter commodification, or they can die.
There ought to be a law against patent trolling
This sounds like it could actually be a case of copyright infringement!
Toshiba's still getting over HD-DVD. They're making upscaling DVD players to compete with Blu-Ray. They lost a lot of face, and they're losing even more money. All the huge "we do everything" Japanese conglomerates (Toshiba, Hitachi, Sanyo) are in pain due to the stagnant economy. Perhaps these lawsuits can help restore them to profitability. I hope so because Toshiba is a darn fine company that makes out with your mom.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
In school, I used to get told that if I wanted to eat candy in class that I would have to provide enough for everyone. Toshiba brought enough for everyone, but some companies are trying to get more than their fair share by not paying for a license. Toshiba is completely in the right to demand payment for the licenses.
On the other hand, this is why killing HD-DVD was such an important thing. Putting two major patent holders (Toshiba and Microsoft) in charge of the direction of the de facto media format would have been disastrous.
Memorex make some of the better DVDRs I've used in the UK. I presume they sell the same ones in the USA.
Toshiba, OTOH, sell expensive ones that don't seem to last quite so long.
I presume therefore that it is cheaper to file a lawsuit in the US these days than it is to invest in R&D.
74.117.115.116 32.97.110.111 116.104.101.114 32.80.101.114 108.32.104.97 99.107.101.114
The only reason to buy recordable media is for OS installation, as often it's either the easiest or only way to get the installer in. If USB flash drives aren't patent encumbered, can we please have our Linux installers readymade for them? Would be better for the environment too!
One of the eight companies named in the lawasuit, aside from Imation. Anyone know the others?
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
When are we going to get "open" disc formats, like an "open" HD optical disc? It would seem to me that something of that nature would help drive down the cost of this type of media.
Or am I being stupid again?
Which patents is it alleged that they are infringing? All of them? Some of them? Without knowing which patents they're talking about, we don't know what the fuck we're talking about. I see a lot of comments saying that Memorex &c should pay up... for what?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are flash drives an open standard or are they also encumbered by patents?
Both USB and SD are patented, and inventions used in high-density NAND flash memory are probably patented too.
Sony may not always play nice, but at least they haven't been charged with monopolistic business practices (that I'm aware of, anyway).
The USA investigated Sony for antitrust violations in 2008, as did China in 2007.
I remember reading something about asking for retroactive damages when you know full well that infringement is happening, and how that's a bad idea.
Before you knee-jerk post "that's only for trademarks", please familiarize yourself with the equitable defense of laches.
If USB flash drives aren't patent encumbered, can we please have our Linux installers readymade for them?
USB is patented, as is high-density NAND flash. And SanDisk took other USB flash drive makers to court in 2007.
I tend to agree with you.
I would like to add one thing, however. Whenever suits like this are brought up and the companies named as defendants are slapped with a fine, guess who ultimately coughs up the money?
That's right, the consumer. So, while everything else is going up and with prospects of inflation ahead, we can thank Toshiba (if they're successful) for increasing the costs of certain products like DVD-Rs!
He who has no
Imation have been offereing DVD media since at least 2002.
Why the delay?
Are Toshiba and the DVD6C group really suffering at the hands of solid state memory devices so badly that they need to reduce Imation's market share through a costly lawsuit? With Imation also owning TDK and Memorex, surely they could sell their products through their licences instead anyway? Or at least, 'rent' their facilities to them?
I'd like to know what the 'real' catalyst was for this situation...
As it is, you can show them your stuff, they say "Hey, that looks like it infringes on several of our patents. We'll sue you if you don't cross license".
And you're then just as butt-fucked as in your case.
An NDA and *NO* patents is far more secure.
When Ben Franklin got started with patents, he was happy to share the idea. Nowadays, patents are used to create scarcity. I've been reading an alternative analysis of patents and copyrights in a book called "Intellectual Monopoly." Of course, the book is making a case against intellectual property, but it is one of the easiest to read.
I find this book very interesting, especially the parts about James Watt and genetically modified organism patents. After reading just half the book, I've reached the conclusion that patents require at the least, very close parental supervision. Or we could just eliminate them, once and for all. We won't know for sure if competition is a sin until patents are gone.
This whole patent business, while entertaining, is sort of depressing.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Blu-Ray has not been the huge success that Sony had hoped. For the average person DVD (and DVD-R/RW) is good enoufg. That won't change unless the prices on Blu-Ray players and disks drop significantly. And then there are people like me, who will never buy Blu-Ray just because its from Sony!
For many years I had though that what was needed was an international body that would decide which was the best when there were 2 competing standards. Now I don't think so, mainly because of seeing how M$ manipulated and trashed the ISO standards process. But there has been to much stupid crap that has happened when 2 or more companies try to compete to be THE standard. The classic case that most think of is Beta VS VHS video tapes. Another was the battle between Hayes and U.S Robotics.
The other point you are forgetting about these consortia is that companies can work together, and not apart, to develop standards that work for all. And in the case of DVD there were multiple standards in existence that could have emerged as the winner - but companies working together and taking the advice of outsiders helped make DVD possible. And DVD's are/were a smashing success.
There are two tremendous electronics successes in my lifetime; The Gameboy (original) is the highest selling single electronics model of all time. The DVD player (of all varieties) is the fastest selling electronics device of all time. And DVD got that way because it was worked on together and perfected by the consortium. There were factions in the consortium that didn't get along, but they eventually did to the benefit of all (and some might say to the benefit of humanity, but that might be a stretch).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Forum
(Too lazy to create the links, but if you were using Google Chrome you could drag those into your location bar and go...)
Get your Unix fortune now!
Tell Toshiba to "get fucked!"
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I hate CMC (memorex) even more. Their products are terrible wastes of plastic that would probably be slightly more useful as coasters (which they usually end up being anyways).
Their dual layer DVDs are a joke and your lucky if you get one dvd-dl out of a pack of 20 that works and lasts for more than a month or two.
Even their single layer DVDs are terrible. They only last a month or two.
And the worst part is CMC has a near monopoly on DVDs. I went to compUSA and they didn't have a single non-CMC brand. If you don't know who makes it...its probably CMC. HP, Imation, Memorex, Generic Brands, and now even single layer once holy Verbatims.
If CMC is sued out of existence for not paying Toshiba then they had whats coming to them. They certainly make terrible products that are a sheer joke. Who in their right mind would honestly trust their data on a CMC disc?
Maybe with CMC out of the picture we can actually find Taiyo Yudens in stores. (because lets face whenever you need more DVDs you need them right away and don't feel like waiting for shipping)
So if I create a pact with all but my fiercest competitors, submit a patent on a newly emerging main stream technology , and wait 10 years... I can hire a team of lawyers, and sue the whole world for a technology that they've been freely using since its inception? Then, my collective group can get filthy rich off of a technology that we've neither worked to develop or produce? Who needs work when I can rape the rest of the world of all forms of creativity by bullying the masses into submission with my personal team of scumbag lawyers. This is like the bastard child of monopolies and mob rule dipped in awesomeness. Get ready to pay up, first on my list of patents is valid but unsound arguments.