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Toshiba Sues Over DVD Patents

Posted by timothy on from the cornering-the-market dept.

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."

23 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. BluRay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well it's a good thing we have Bluray to protect us from those evil DVD manufacturers

  2. Link is fine, text: by qoncept · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  3. Oh well... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Oh well... by cavtroop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Oh well... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Oh well... by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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 . . .

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  4. They're just mad about HD-DVD by Gizzmonic · · Score: 3, Funny

    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)
  5. Fairness towards all licensees by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Fairness towards all licensees by internerdj · · Score: 5, Funny

      Instead we put it in the hands of "always caring for the customer and their rights" Sony?

    2. Re:Fairness towards all licensees by jaiyen · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      Instead we've got nine major patent holders - Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG Electronics, Hitachi, Sharp, and Samsung - in charge of Blu-ray. Is that really an improvement ?

  6. Re:hmph by MouseR · · Score: 4, Funny

    There ought to be a law against patent trolling

    They can't use it. It's patented.

  7. Re:hmph by cdrudge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. Re:hmph by ivicente · · Score: 5, Funny

    Humm, that's an interesting idea. Have you considered patenting it?

  9. Re:Moser Baer - India by oDDmON+oUT · · Score: 3, Informative

    Found the others: CMC Magnetics Crop., Ritek Corp., Glyphics Media, Hotan Corp, Khypermedia Corp and Advanced Media Inc in the United States.

    --
    Some days it's just not worth
    chewing through my restraints.
  10. Which patents? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.'"
    1. Re:Which patents? by omnichad · · Score: 3, Informative

      The patents that cover making a DVD. Yes, all of them. The ones that most DVD manufacturer's pay licenses for, but these people didn't.

    2. Re:Which patents? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.'"
  11. Re:I wonder by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  12. Re:Moser Baer - India by omnichad · · Score: 3, Informative

    In other words, the companies that make the media that Imation and Memorex actually sell. Most of these "generic" sounding brands are the makers of some of the finest media available. Ritek and Khypermedia are two of the best.

  13. Antitrust against Sony by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  14. Re:Figures by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Memorex make some of the better DVDRs I've used in the UK.

    Memorex makes fuck-all. They sell CMC Magnetics and Ritek media. The Office Depot brand is just as good.

    There is a relatively small number of manufacturers of DVDR media. Memorex, Imation, Maxell, etc. are just stamping their names on them.

    There a nice chart at the bottom of this page
    .

  15. Re:hmph by Dachannien · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.).

  16. Re:I wonder by PRMan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...