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."

Comments

Oh well...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Flash drives are ridiculously cheap, and substantially more convenient. DVD-Rs can either embrace dirt-cheapness and utter commodification, or they can die.

Re:Oh well...

[cavtroop]

4GB Flash drive: http://www.google.com/products?q=4gb+flash+drive&oe=utf-8&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___US315&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=39MSStyRDpThtge29JCSBA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

about $10

Single blank DVD: http://gemm.com/q.cgi?rb=GOOGLEBASE&wild=GML1415945804

$0.50

Um?

Re:Oh well...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

One of these two things can be rewritten several hundred times, and supports substantially granular writing/deletion/rewriting.

The other supports single use, on granular read/write/delete only through "sessions" or UDF packet writing, which is a rather limited hack.

Re:Oh well...

[MBGMorden]

Which is irrelevant to many. I use DVD's primarily for data backups and archiving. In that case the use is going to be a "write once and then store it" situation anyways. The rewriteability is of no use. Don't get me wrong - I keep a 4gb flash drive handy too because they are useful, but the two of them get used and markedly different ways. I've never had a need for more than 1 flash drive because it just use it for moving files around and keeping them handy when I'm on the move. And truthfully, the "Memory stick" iPod application for my iPod touch is quite possibly going to replace that flash drive. I walk into any area with wi-fi, launch up memory stick, and I then can access (password protected naturally) my iPod's internal storage from any computer just by leaving it sitting on the desk. Close out memory stick when I'm done so that it doesn't remain an open share. It's great, and by it being on the iPod it becomes 1 less device to carry around. Now if only Verizon (the only carrier that services the area where my house is) would just get access to some incarnation of the iPhone I could finally stop carrying around a separate phone and ipod . . .

Fairness towards all licensees

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:hmph

[cdrudge]

How exactly is this a patent troll? It seems to me that Toshiba retains the rights to patents legitimately obtained for actual innovation and have long been known about and licensed to others. Toshiba isn't holding the patents for ransom with outrageous licensing terms, submarining them, or keeping them a secret until after a standard was ratified and then springing them. I'd say that for a system that has all sorts of flaws and issues, this is a legitimate case where the system is working as it was intended in a legitimate fashion.

Re:I wonder

[TheRaven64]

Developing a new form of optical storage costs a lot of money in terms of R&D. The people who front this cash need to get it back somehow. If you can come up with a better way of doing this than patenting the new technologies and charging a license fee, then all you need to do is persuade someone to invest...