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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."
In that case, I suppose the obvious retort will be that the patents were not available "on a non-exclusive basis to interested third-party licensees pursuant to separate negotiations on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms"
Or maybe they just pay up :)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While licensing consortia look at first glance to be Evil(tm), they actually do serve an important function. Many technologies are covered by several, perhaps dozens, of patents. Trying to negotiate individually with each company for licensing terms would be a legal and logistical nightmare - especially considering that if you miss one, you're screwed. Negotiating with a licensing consortium means that you only have to go through the licensing steps once, and you're covered for the duration of your license against all of the various patents covering the technology.
Yes, you still have to be careful inasmuch as some company may have decided not to get on board the consortium train, but the chances of this happening are reduced.
The true evil arises when licensing consortia impose "terms of use" on their licenses, such as by leveraging patents to enforce DRM restrictions on equipment manufacturers (DVD-CSS, AACS, HDMI, CableCARD, etc.).
That's why Toshiba should Open HD-DVD and allow royalty-free use everywhere.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...