RSSMicrosoft Sued Over JPEG Patent
By Nate Mook | Published April 22, 2005, 1:27 PM
Scheduling software maker Forgent has filed suit against Microsoft for allegedly infringing on its patent that covers the technology behind JPEG image compression. But Microsoft has already made the first strike, filing its own lawsuit last week that asks the courts to nullify Forgent's patent.
Forgent says it was in talks with Microsoft over licensing the patent when Redmond made the first legal move. Forgent's lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas by the company's Compression Labs subsidiary.
"It's unfortunate that, despite Microsoft's recent inquiries about licensing the patent, they chose to file a lawsuit, leaving us no alternative but to assert infringement claims against it," Forgent CEO Richard Snyder said in a statement.
After unsuccessfully trying to sell its JPEG patent to Compaq, Forgent has switched its strategy to litigation - a tactic that has proven successful. Forgent has sued 44 companies thus far and raked in more than $100 million in licensing fees from 34 others.
Microsoft has yet to comment on the lawsuit, but Redmond is notorious for fighting patent infringement claims. Microsoft is still in a battle with Eolas over a patent covering Internet Explorer's plug-in architecture.
"The reported $100 million in licensing fees indicates a strong patent, one likely to withstand Microsoft invalidity challenge. This is not at all an indication that the patent system is broken. More likely, it just demonstrates the need for careful planning in adopting industry standards such JPEG as illustrated in the Rambus cases," said Bruce Wecker, a partner with Hosie, Frost, Large & McArthur in San Francisco.
Nice to see lots of people disussing whether or not MS should or should not pay Forgent to license jpeg.
Of course, it's all moot, because that's not what this is about. MS can't and won't license the use of jpegs from Forgent because Forgent didn't create and doesn't own jpeg. They bought a patent that they claim covers a method of image compression that's so similar to jpeg's that they think they can get away with suing people over it. And so far they've been suceeding... But it's about time someone stood up to them. The jpeg people created jpeg (duh?), and their first drafts predate the forgent patent by quite a lot, so there's even prior art. Again it's an example of how how US patent rules can be used by any dorky two-bit company to rake in money through intimidation.
And if any private person tried what Forgent is doing now, they would be beaten down with the clause that says if you don't actively enforce your rights continously, claims made later on will be void. Obviously this doesn't apply if the patent holder is a cheeky company that's planning to go into full-time litigation business. How long has jpeg been around? and they started enforcing licenses last year orso? yeah, right...
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Just move to PNG for goodness sake. We have the memory and HD space now to handle it. JPG is so 1980s.
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Hmm.... considering my digital camera uses Jpeg... I CARE! Why would I convert all my pics to a different format for crying out loud. And come to think of it, almost every digital camera uses jpeg.
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PNG is not suitable for many kinds of images, e.g. photos. Oh, PNG could be used for such images, but the files would be very large, and this may not matter for those who have huge HDs, but it matters a lot for the web, as huge files would result in slower page load times: not everyone has high-speed Internet connections.
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All they make is jpegs and I don't want to be arrested for viewing, editing or converting them.
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Sounds like your camera would be liable to me, either you helped pay for the license when you bought the camera or you didn't and the manufacturer is in deep doodoo. Similar to mp3s (which is why I use Ogg Vorbis http://xiph.org/about/)
mp3 software licensing: http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
mp3 hardware licensing:
http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/hardware.html
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MS wants JPEG to be Open Source? Or better yet, Public Domain? Wow, I can see how royalty free technology would help everybody.
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I think I'm going back to crayons and construction paper... don't get that peskey pixel dust all over you that way any how!
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He doesn't realize that MSFT doesn't want just a license to use Forgen't JPEG. MSFT wants the whole freaking company. Which would be fine with me. Then we wouldn't see this BS over the jpeg fileformatt any more.
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Once upon a time, 90% of the PC world used a command-line program named ARC from System Enhancement Associates to compress and package multiple files into a single *.ARC file.
A guy named Phil Katz came along and wrote a program named PKARC which use the same file format but compressed better and faster. It became very popular in the days when 1200 baud modems were fast and $25/hour for nationwide long distance was considered cheap.
When SEA sued Phil, BBS SysOps and users were quick to line up behind Phil. Even though the ARC format held a monopoly grip on the installed base, Phil realized that he had enough support to launch a one-man challenge. Thus PKZIP and the ZIP file format was born.
Unfortunately, 90% of the PC world in those days was maybe a million people. Today, there are literally HUNDREDS of millions of people who use JPEG files daily. Even with Microsoft's deep pockets, moving the world away from JPEG would be a daunting task.
In fact, JPEG does already have a replacement: JPEG 2000 which has been implemented in a fair number of commercial, freeware, and open source products. But even after years of growth, barely a tiny fraction of the world's JPEG users know about JPEG 2000.
Hence the need for someone to stand up to Forgent. Obviously, there are 34 companies who felt that they couldn't afford the millions of dollars to fight, and Forgent is bold enough to fight 44 other companies simultaneously, so the only worthy opponent for Forgent's lawyers may be Microsoft's armies of lawyers.
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Forgent has something any monopolising company would want: "widely used technology". So of course Microsoft will try to *steal* it away from them. Microsoft has been known in the past to have simply stolen technology if they couldn't buy it.
JPEG, pfft' who cares if nearly all graphic applications have that format and digital cameras alike use it. That doesn't mean something newer and better can't replace it.
Microsoft should never have provoked Forgent. Long live the patent.
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Gate has been there and done that.
Wrong move...
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You've got to be kidding me.
Go do something useful and quit taking up valuable space and money being greedy.
Microsoft and Forgent should both be kicked out of court and fined $10 Million each for bothering the court system with stupid BS.
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Okay, so Forgent was upset because no one wanted to buy JPEG, so they got po'ed and started suing OMGEVERYONEANDTHEIRBROTHER who uses it? Okay, how mentally challenged do you get? I hope MSFT fights them and drives them to the ground. This is stupid and I can't believe they're tying up our judicial system with something so brainless.
Thanks for the laugh Forgent!
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You fool!
M$ made the first legal move.
Anyone who has a dispute that can't be reasonably resolved should take it to court or mediation.
Why else does the court system exist?
The whole premise behind frivolous lawsuits is frivolous.
If only I could sue you for being an idiot :)
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Well technically if you live in California you could. In that state they will sue you for anything.
I am still waiting to see some idiot from California to bring out a lawsuit for having to breath next to someone that stole some air from there personal space or some other silly thing.......
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ironically im currently being unjustly sued by a californian corporation ;)
its about to be dismissed
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LOL having to "breath".
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I tried that last week and lost. this week I am suing the person in the cubicle next to me because their foot odor infringes upon my cubiclespace heheh
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lmao.
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Forgent must want a fortune for the licensing.
I can not blame MS for sueing them it seems everyone else thought it was worthy and ended up paying in the end anyways.
I hate JPEG myself it is not a very effiecient way of compression anymore at all.
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Every patent should have a timeframe on it where the inventor can make their profit. The timeframe should depend on how common it is to duplicate it without the original and/or how commonly is it being used by the general public. After that it expires and everyone can use it.
That way we wouldn't have these greedy retards poping up years later saying we discovered ASCII and every character you type from now on is subject to tax & royalty fees.
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