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Kodak's Patent Spat Threatens Photo Web Sites
Alain Williams writes "According to the BBC: 'Kodak claimed it owns patents regarding the display of online images that is being infringed by Shutterfly. The photo-sharing site disputes these claims and has launched a counter suit. But the landmark case could have ramifications for other popular online photo sites such as Yahoo's Flickr and Google's Picasa.'"
September 16, 1991. Today it finally began! After all these years of talking and nothing but talking we have finally taken our first action. We are at war with the System, and it is no longer a war of words.
I cannot sleep, so I will try writing down some of the thoughts which are flying through my head.
It is not safe to talk here. The walls are quite thin, and the neighbors might wonder at a latenight conference. Besides, George and Katherine are already asleep. Only Henry and I are still awake, and he’s just staring at the ceiling.
I am really uptight. l am so jittery I can barely sit still. And I’m exhausted. I’ve been up since 5:30 this morning, when George phoned to warn that the arrests had begun, and it’s after midnight now. I’ve been keyed up and on the move all day.
But at the same time I’m exhilarated. We have finally acted! How long we will be able to continue defying the System, no one knows. Maybe it will all end tomorrow, but we must not think about that. Now that we have begun, we must continue with the plan we have been developing so carefully ever since the Gun Raids two years ago.
What a blow that was to us! And how it shamed us! All that brave talk by patriots, "The government will never take my guns away," and then nothing but meek submission when it happened.
On the other hand, maybe we should be heartened by the fact that there were still so many of us who had guns then, nearly 18 months after the Cohen Act had outlawed all private ownership of firearms in the United States. It was only because so many of us defied the law and hid our weapons instead of turning them in that the government wasn’t able to act more harshly against us after the Gun Raids.
I’ll never forget that terrible day: November 9, 1989. They knocked on my door at five in the morning. I was completely unsuspecting as I got up to see who it was.
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It infringes on no less than 235 Kodak patents!!
merry christmas and a happy Sue-year
Sorry, this goes nowhere.
On line photos which could be downloaded for a fee (or free) were incorporated on the net before there even was a net.
Which is long before Kodak even wised up to the fact that their world was coming to an end.
From the earliest on line p0rn BBS sites right up to the current sync your phone to online photo sites, the prior art is there in huge steaming, jiggling piles.
Too late Kodak.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Xerox is gonna be pissed! That Alto station is gonna have to be licensed up soon.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Isn't Kodak's market cap well less than $2BN? Google should just buy them, fire everyone, sell of the interesting parts, and then salt the land where their headquarters is.
This isn't news. Filing a lawsuit doesn't say anything; It's a numbers game. Think of it like this: Let's say you have a 10% chance of prevailing, it will cost you 1 million dollars in legal fees to get a shot at rolling those dice, and the payoff if you make it is 150 million in licensing fees. Is it worth it? Now, stop and consider that because of the way the patent system is setup, you can have many additional challenges, each with about a 10% chance of success. If a lawsuit is filed, it is because the risk/benefit analysis is favorable. It has nothing to do with justice, fairness, or any intangible value you might care to place on it.
This is one business throwing the dice and seeing if the bet pays off. It isn't news until pay day.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Kodak used to be the single leader in innovative technology with their film, cameras, and the invention of the (nearly) instant-print Polaroid. Now, they’re essentially a gigantic patent troll. They haven’t been really innovative for a very long time, and their last resort is to sue.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
Don't forget that the business of government benefits from every single lawsuit, even the ones that are thrown out. There's a reason why the US government is the most expensive government in the world, and it's not because having an insanely complex, ambiguous, and exploitable system of law is less lucrative than one based on simplicity and common sense.
I think these patent lawsuits will just keep coming, and coming, and coming.
Are any companies going to have any resources to commit to technological innovation? Not if they are constantly forced to conduct rear guard operations against lawsuit assaults.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Clarification: The dispute it that not just with hosting images but allowing these image to ordered on-line.
From the fine article Kodak says "We are committed to protecting these assets from unauthorized use,"
Translation: We want to make money off a really obvious idea because we missed the digital almost entirely and haven't found a way to be truly innovative.
Think what the business world would be like if someone had been allowed to patent: "Process for storing products in boxes in a warehouse and later moving them to shelves in a retail store."
USPTO patent approvers should do that. Especially the thinking part.
There was that Asteroids Game a while back that let you fire bullets and blow up fragments of a page that you didn't like. I'd like a turbo version of that, maybe as a browser add-on, that lets you automatically delete the first thread on Slashdot.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Send a message to Kodak customer relations department here:
http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=15718&pq-locale=en_US
Sorry, this goes nowhere.
On line photos which could be downloaded for a fee (or free) were incorporated on the net before there even was a net.
Which is long before Kodak even wised up to the fact that their world was coming to an end.
From the earliest on line p0rn BBS sites right up to the current sync your phone to online photo sites, the prior art is there in huge steaming, jiggling piles.
Too late Kodak.
If the claims of the patents are "1. A method for receiving photos, comprising (a) downloading, either for a fee or for free, photos via a network," you'd have a point. But they aren't. You have to find prior art for each and every element in the claims, not just each and every word in a patent's title.
A really big one going down in the general aviation world right now.
http://erkie.github.com/
Always on tap here.
you assume that 10% chance in the first place for such ridiculous prior art ...thats bad risk man.
ok you have a 10% chance a surviving surgery should you do it?
9 times out of ten your dead.
AND then think of the counter lawsuits.....
Can you imagine what kind of innovation would be possible if these companies spent their legal budgets on R&D?
What ever happened by competing for business by enticing customers through a combination of innovation, product, value, service and marketing?
What I see more and more is "competition" defined as stifling the progress of competitors who dare to try and work in the same field that you do.
. .
So, one invents a screen whoms sole purpose is to present picture. And then someone finds a way to get a patent to present a picture on a screen... hahahahaha
I have a hardware version of this that exists as a small vertically mounted wheel between the buttons on my mouse.. I just flick the wheel with my index finger, and voila! first post disappears.
In the words of the Bard: Time to kill all the patent trolls and their lawyers.
This is why we can't have nice things!
Did it strike anyone else that this feels like a SCO type of argument? Technology company turns litigious in a last gasp to remain relevant. Just a thought...
I knew that there were several Kodaks that share patents among them?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
back to ASCII porn: ( o )( o )
Table-ized A.I.
Does anyone know what the actual fucking patent is? Anyone? Bueller?
Am I the only one missing the time when Kodak was making cameras? I remember my first cheap "instamatic" in the 80s....
News groups were first here before http servers.
and also technically, IRC servers had bots that served images too in 1991.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
LOL, this countersuit situation ably illustrates the Golden Rule of patent litigation: Sue not, lest ye be sued. Or is it: Sue unto others as you would have other sue unto you?