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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."
Is there a patent for breathing, something like "A way to create a vacuum inside the human body in order to force external air inside the lungs, so oxygen can be transferred to the blood."
I'd love to patent it, then charge something like 0,0001$ per breathe per individual. At 12 breathes per minute * 6 billion humans, it's something like 36 000$ per hour.
What's great is that it would cost every human ONLY 52.56$ per year. Pretty reasonnable!
Sorry, but you have it wrong. Apple is always an innovator.
The iSlate is going to have shark-mounted lasers.
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.
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?
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
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.
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
Because Apple is special, haven't you heard? Not only in this case of course, it applies always - for example regarding Nokia wireless patents.
One that hath name thou can not otter
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"...
One that hath name thou can not otter
They mean different things, for starters. Are you complaining that words exist outside your vocabulary? Really?
In 2008, Nokia had a net income of 5.77 billion dollars, Apple had a net income of 4.83 billion dollars. Their margins are lower then Apple's but they're a far bigger company. Get your facts straight before dismissing others.
Apple has "redefined" less than 3% of current market (and with the uptake of mobile phones in developing countries, areas in which Apple is not interested in, that percentage might as well go down); that's a curious definition of "mobile market" you have there. Also, it seems Nokia wants to go in a bit different direction, as their N900 shows (which is of course directly based on their earlier tablets; which were launched before first news of iPhone)
On top of that, Nokia is the only hugely profitable phone manufacturers. Others are either out of the market, struggling for a long time, or mobile phones aren't their main business (RIM is debatable here - do they market primarily mobile phones or corporate service?)
One that hath name thou can not otter
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.
One that hath name thou can not otter