Kodak Sues Apple & RIM Over Preview In Cameras

Dave Knott writes "Kodak is suing Apple and Research In Motion over technology related to digital cameras in their iPhone and BlackBerry smart phones. The complaint specifically relates to photo preview functionality which Kodak claims infringes on their patents. The company is asking for unspecified monetary damages and a court order to end the disputed practices. Kodak has amassed more than 1,000 digital-imaging patents, and almost all of today's digital cameras rely on that technology. Kodak has licensed digital-imaging technology to about 30 companies, including mobile-device makers such as LG Electronics Inc., Motorola Inc., Nokia Corp. and Sony Ericsson, all of which pay royalties to Kodak."

Comments

Apple = Lame.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is a shit of a company. using others technology without paying (not just kodak but nokia too). if there were more companies like this less R&D would be done and we be further back in technological progress. not only this but apple SUCKS HARD at collaboration and is extremely secretive. Fuck apple.

Here is an idea

[arcite]

How about Apple use some of that pocket change they have laying around and do a little hostile takeover of Kodak. Then Steve Jobs can use their ancient camaras as target practice with his iSlate gesture controlled laser mounted sharks?

Re:Here is an idea

[Speare]

How about Apple use some of that pocket change they have laying around and do a little hostile takeover of Kodak.

Do you really want Apple to own a patent on photo previewing, and a thousand others? I'm sure they'll be kind and let RIM and Samsung and HTC and Motorola use those technologies at a very reasonable cost. Be careful what you ask for.

Re:Here is an idea

[mejogid]

God forbid that a company that helped pioneer photography for the last hundred or so years be paid for doing so. These are real patents designed to incentivise R&D and prevent competitors cashing in on another company's research. Judging by the number of companies paying them they're not without merit - why should Apple be exempt?

Re:Here is an idea

[jo_ham]

Funny how Nokia waited until the iPhone was a raging success before doing anything about those patents, isn't it?

Regardless of the nature of the situation, some of these patent claims (from all sorts of sources, not just this one) are absurd - I think it peaked with the "one click shopping" patent.

The whole system is just abused.

If Apple and RIM are in violation of this patent they will no doubt pay up. The cost of challenging is more than simply ponying up the cash.

Re:Here is an idea

[sznupi]

That's simply false, Nokia tried to negotiate with Apple for quite a while. Plus, in the scale of Nokia, iPhone is very far from "raging success"...

Re:Here is an idea

[Anonymous Coward]

actually it sounds more like patent squatting. the idea of previewing a picture before taking it should not be patentable. The hardware/software to do so might, however, apple isnt using kodiak hardware.

Re:Here is an idea

[whisper_jeff]

Flamebait?? I crack a joke and get modded flamebait?? Ok, it wasn't a great joke but, wow... I didn't realize mounting sharks on lasers was such a touchy subject...

Re:Here is an idea

[CrackedButter]

Apple have redefined the mobile market and everybody wants to do a phone like the iPhone. They also don't need to own the market to be a success, just make a profit, which is a damn sight more than what Nokia is doing.

Re:Here is an idea

[AndersOSU]

It's not clear to me that this isn't patentable. Before the digital camera you had to look through the viewfinder - there was no other way. The obvious way to design a digital camera would be with the CCD array as a drop in replacement for the film. You'd frame your shot with the viewfinder just as you always did. The relevant question is whether it would be obvious to someone skilled in the art of camera design to stick a screen where there never was one before and pipe the CCD data to it. It's not the greatest leap in the world - but it was, at one point, novel and it might not have been obvious.

The problem we have is with the benefit of hindsight, every digital camera has a screen on it, so it's not easy for us to imagine it any other way. But a digital camera could work just as well as a film point and shoot and then you'd take your memory card to the photoshop for prints rather than scrolling through them on the display. So had the preview functionality never been invented, no one would have even thought of the camera phone.

If this was a non-obvious invention, the fact that we can't imagine a present without it, it means that this was an especially important invention that deserves protection.

Re:Here is an idea

[Khyber]

"actually it sounds more like patent squatting. the idea of previewing a picture before taking it should not be patentable"

EXACTLY. It is an idea anybody familiar with an SLR camera would know about.

The hardware, controlling software, and exact design specification should be patentable. The idea itself, should not.

And that's one thing that fucked our patent system. That goddamned commercial on TV "Have an idea? Patent it!" No. It should be "Have a unique invention/device? Patent it!" Ideas should not be patentable, as anybody with enough experience in the field should be able to come up with the same idea.

Machine or Transformation, not thoughts.

Re:Here is an idea

[mdwh2]

Apple have redefined the mobile market

Okay I'll bite - which definition of "redefined the market" are we using today?

and everybody wants to do a phone like the iPhone.

Really. So what features make a phone "like the iPhone" exactly?

They also don't need to own the market to be a success

The claim was that Nokia waited until the Iphone was a "raging success". So we have the classic Apple fan trick of redefining "success" in the market to mean something far weaker. I've seen this a million times before.

And does this mean that Apple weren't making a profit when the Iphone was first released? I mean, according to you, "raging success" just means making a profit, yet according to the OP, Nokia waited until they were a "raging success" (making a profit) before suing them. So which is it?

Re:Here is an idea

[mdwh2]

Apple is a "raging success" or "far more impressive", simply because they've been doing it for less? That makes no sense. We judge companies by their absolute success, and they don't get excuses simply because they've been doing it for less. But anyhow, I'm glad you agree that Apple are nowhere near as good as Nokia - as you say, they haven't been in it look, so what can we expect.

It's not like Apple are some teeny start-up - they've got billions of dollars at their disposal, and a trademark/brand that plenty of fans and media will give hype and free advertising to. On top of that, the phone industry is fast moving, and crosses over a large amount with computer technology, so playing catchup is easy (although it still took ages with Apple - 3G, and all the other features that were bog standard on phones for years before, yet for some reason it's the Iphone which is classed as a smartphone...)

If you actually look at everything in scale, the iPhone is far more impressive than just about anything Nokia has ever released in terms of sales numbers.

No, even in a given period of time, Nokia's sales are far greater, about an order of magnitude in fact. But let me guess, you've redefined "sales numbers" to mean something other than what it usually means.

Its rather retarded to compare a 4 year old product line to a 40 year old product line and use the word 'scale' so loosely.

Right, so if you concede that the 40 year old product line must be much better, why do we hear nothing about the Iphone?

These people aren't saying "Well the Iphone is nowhere near as good as Nokia, but hey, it's not bad considering it's only Apple"! They're claiming that the Iphone is the best ever. Claiming that by "best" you mean "not the best, but they would be if they'd been doing it as long, honest" makes no sense.

Re:Here is an idea

[sznupi]

Retarded would be looking at 4 decades of mobile telephony history, of which Nokia is major part, as a 40 year old product line and disregarding that Apple entered only at convenient moment for them; and mainly into a small segment of total market, made ready for Apple by castration of phones and lax concept of "affordable". But it's very interesting how you perceive long standing dedication of Nokia to provide communication equipment to people as somehow lessening their success...

(how is domination started with Apple II going along? What, Apple pissed away their advantage, their early start?)

Ah, and there's another fantasy with sales numbers. All the while only one model from Nokia, 1100, sold more, during its much shorter presence on the market, than all iPods combined. It is the most popular single consumer electronics device in history. BTW, Nokia is by far the biggest manufacturer of portable audio players in the world (shipping more units annually than Apple has ever produced). Probably even flashlights, too... (since a portion of their most popular phones include a LED one)

While Apple sold 30 million phones in those 4 years (and they don't seem to really want selling orders of magnitude more, perhaps preferring a world in which communication is a luxury), Nokia sold a billion in the last 2 years + one quarter. It is greatly responsible, among others, for the fact that while a year ago there were 3 billion mobile subscribers, now there are around 4.6 billion. You're a slime not thinking about the future of humanity if you think that's not monumental, far above anything Apple has done lately (they did similar things at the beginning, popularizing the concept of personal computer; and even then their scale was nowhere nearby what Nokia is doing)

PS. I also value that Nokia maintains R&D centers throughout the world and that most of their manufacturing plants are NOT in China.

Obvious

[Hatta]

Obvious patent is obviously invalid.

Re:Obvious

[the_crowbar]

Obvious was my first thought as well. How long have cameras had a "preview"? Let's see, the very first camera I can remember was a Polaroid with the instant pictures. That camera had a view finder that showed you what to expect to see in the final picture. Every film camera I have every used had a "preview." Why was this patent granted? Just because it is a digital camera does that negate the decades of prior art in film cameras?

Cheers,
the_crowbar

Re:Obvious

[LWATCDR]

I can see a major difference between this a few finder.
This will show a digital copy of the image in includes all the digital processing and sensor data. A viewfinder even in an SLR only shows what strikes the film. The chemistry of the film and how it is processed will have a huge effect on the actual picture. Yes I know that you do a lot of post processing with digital images but the original data is still delivered vs what happens with Film.
Add in all the big companies that are paying fees for this and I would bet this is probably a valid patent. And let's be honest Kodak isn't an IP shill company. They make a lot of stuff and do a lot of research.

Re:Obvious

[Synchis]

Kodak is not a company that is widely known for frivolous lawsuits. If I had to guess, I would say their lawyers likely know what they're doing.

Keep in mind:

Digital Cameras (including smartphones/cellphones) != Film Cameras.

Thus, no prior art.

Oh, and I love your example... a Polaroid camera... which just happens to be a Kodak product.

Who cares about the stock price?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, the article has almost no information. All we know is that Kodak has asked that the offending devices not be shipped into the US. The other piece of information that we have is the stock prices of the three companies. WHY do these "reporter" insist on putting in a snapshot of the stock price at that moment in time? It has absolutely no value whatsoever yet they insist on putting it in. Totally meaningless and was one of the only factual items in the article. I hope I never understand business types....

Is there any doubt about what Patents Do?

[paulsnx2]

As other posters have already pointed out, we don't have much detail at this time. But let us assume for a moment that the Kodak patent in question is over the ability to preview a picture taken....

We have had thumbnail representations of pictures for much longer than 20 years.

And given a digital camera, the first thing you might want, after you take a picture, is to see what the picture looks like.

If this isn't obvious, what is?

And exactly how does it advance the technology to have every company pay a "tax" to Kodak who makes a camera with preview ?

Toss obvious patents! Cut the lifetime of the rest to 5 years!

If we really wanted free markets, competition, and growth of technology, the goal would be to cut the number of patents filed in the U.S. by 75 percent! Big companies use patents to tax others, and to crowd out competition. Do we really think Kodak had to come around and invent preview for digital cameras? Hogwash.

The reason why retail cell phone prices are high

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

.....is not because the service provider wants to "encourage" you to sign up for a two year contract, it's because of all the stacked tech licensing fees.

I foresee...

[Synchis]

An out of court settlement with both companies.

The first thing I see amongst comments here is a bunch of stuff about invalid patents.

What the /. community needs to understand, is that not *every* patent is invalid just because its being used to sue.

Kodak is not a patent troll. They do real work, good work, and file patents on it to protect their inventions.

If there was ever a patent to assume is valid and in good standing, it would be a digital imaging patent, filed by a company that specializes in Imaging (and these days, Digital imaging).

Kodak is not evil. If these companies think they can implement functionality in their devices just because everyone else does, they need to think again. Everyone else is licensing the technology. If they are not, then they are infringing, and deserve to be sued.

Re:I foresee...

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Kodak make these days? They are just a litigious patent company.

They stopped being relevant when their expensive as hell wet paper technology seized to be useful.

Re:desperate times...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, not really, no. Leaders in digital imaging would be Canon and Nikon, and as of late Sony as well (since they acquired an ex powerhouse in imaging/optics, Konica-Minolta). Even smaller outfits like Pentax or Olympus are more relevant than Kodak these days.

Re:The biggest evidence that this is a BS lawsuit.

[Attila Dimedici]

is how long the iPhone and such have been on the market already. If someone markets a product in violation of your patent, especially when it is so popular as the iPhone, then you best ship up pretty quick and get it cleared up instead of waiting a couple years to make a fuss. That just shows that you finally realized you could make a quick buck and not that you just realized the patent was being violated.

Or perhaps, Kodak has been trying to reach an agreement with Apple without going to court since the iPhone was released and now filed suit after deciding that Apple was unwilling to license the technology. I don't know either way, but we don't have enough information to decide.

Re:No way to tell

[The End Of Days]

You missed an important point - The Slashdot community leans so far towards believing all patents are useless that it's virtually assumed anyone suing over a patent is wrong. It's not about (rather rare) pointless patent trolls at all. It's the rabid reactions of idealists who want everything to be free.

Re:Get off my lawn kid!

[mejogid]

If he's seriously making a business suggestion then it's moronic because:

• A hostile takeover isn't an opening gambit, it's a last resort when a company's board strongly opposes a takeover.
• The companies have absolutely no overlap outside of iPhone cameras which is hardly worth buying the entire company for.
• Kodak is making a loss at the moment, so probably not the kind of profits Apple would enjoy reaping.
• You don't make acquisition of random companies because they have minor overlaps with one of your product lines.

But that's irrelevant, because it was clear from the second sentence that he was suggesting that Kodak were out of date ("ancient cameras") and deserved punishment for making this accusation by Apple ("target practice"). None of that seems to justify being labeled Insightful. Apologies for my age, unfortunately ad-hominems aren't considered legitimate arguments nowadays gramps.

Re:Nokia doesn't make computers or sell music

[Tim C]

That merely shows that Nokia's phone-based income most likely dwarfs Apple's phone-based income, which was exactly the point that was being debated.