Posted on 07/18/2002 6:12:23 PM PDT by Richard Kimball
Forgent Networks (formally known as VTEL) has posted a press release stating their claim to JPEG and their intention to pursue licensing revenue from companies who use it. They own United States patent 4,698,672 which covers the JPEG compression standard, this patent was created by Compression Labs who Forgent bought back in 1997. The press release specifically mentions digital cameras as well as PDA's, web browsers, phones and scanners. It looks as though Sony has already paid $15 million for the privilege...
From The Register:
"Forgent's most recent SEC filing states that Sony Corporation paid the company $15 million for licensing Patent 4,698,672: a significant portion of the $22 million Forgent booked as revenue in the quarter."
From Forgent's own SEC Filing:
In May 2002, Forgent signed a multi-million dollar patent license agreement with Sony Corporation, a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. The patent agreement relates to the Company's data compression technology and marks the second such agreement that Forgent has obtained. The first agreement, with another prestigious international company, was signed in April 2002 and generated $15.0 million in revenue during the three months ended April 30, 2002 for the Company. The Company is pursuing additional license agreements with other companies from multiple industries; however, there can be no assurance that additional licenses can be obtained or, if obtained will be on similar favorable terms.
Press Release:
Forgent Networks Clarifies Licensing Arrangement AUSTIN, Texas, Jul 11, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Forgent(tm) Networks Inc. (Nasdaq:FORG) today clarified its licensing program regarding Forgent's JPEG data compression technology, owned by its subsidiary Compression Labs Inc., embodied in U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672.
JPEG is a standardized image compression mechanism and is designed for compressing either full-color or gray-scale still images.
Forgent has the sole and exclusive right to use and license all the claims under the '672 patent that implement JPEG in all "fields of use" except in the satellite broadcast business. Forgent's "fields of use" for licensing opportunities include digital cameras, digital still image devices, personal digital assistants (PDA's), cellular telephones that download images, browsers, digital camcorders with a still image function, scanners and other devices used to compress, store, manipulate, print or transmit digital images.
Forgent and a national law firm, who has made and continues to make a significant investment to develop Forgent's IP licensing program, are the sole beneficiaries of the patent license revenue.
"We wanted to ensure the investment community and the general public are clear about the terms of our valuable JPEG data compression technology, one of the many technologies we have in our patent portfolio," stated Richard Snyder, chairman and chief executive officer at Forgent. "We are in ongoing discussions with other manufacturers of digital still cameras, printers, scanners and other products that use JPEG technology for licensing opportunities."
Unisys waited a long time before they began to assert their ownership rights. They got a lot of free NEGATIVE publicity. I have no idea of the legal status of the issue, but I see GIFs all over the web. I don't think most people take the Unisys claims too seriously. LZW (the GIF compression formula) is an algorithm. It's sort of like copyrighting 2+2 = 4.
I see the jpeg claims going the same way. If they "win", everyone will stop using the format. So what is the point?
The basic U.S. patent for GIF expires in June, 2003. (Other "extensions" are "pending".) So maybe we can all shift away from jpeg to GIF next June until jpeg expires.
For 3 extra points: what percentage of corporations are run by masters of ticking off the general public?
Wouldn't trademarks be analogous to patents? In the case of trademarks, I know that if the owner does not assert his rights for ten years, he no longer owns the trademark.
Period.
Why wouldn't the same apply to a graphic algorithm?
You're right. But for the web, GIF is fine. If you're printing quality photos, you wouldn't want them in a compressed format anyway.
On the upside, PNG is a public standard and has more features than GIF, JPG, and TIF put together. Most of the browsers and graphics programs already handle it, so it is easy to switch. Since Forgent has apparently been formed for the sole purpose of "mining" the JPG patent, they may just be the force that is needed to get everyone over to a free public standard.
Here is an example of a PNG. See if it displays in your browser:
The patent doesn't cover JPEG (Score:5, Interesting) by StevenMaurer on Thursday July 18, @02:57PM (#3910717) (User #115071 Info | http://slashdot.org/) |
I have a combined ten patents issued and in process in this specific field, so I believe I can call myself an expert in this matter. The claims in this patent cover digital streams which tend to come in tuples, possibly with appended data. Something like this: (1,4) (1,3), (1,6), (4,6), (3,6), (9,6) It specifically claims the separation of these tuples into separate run-length encoded streams. In my example above, it might be: (3x1, 4, 3, 9) (4, 3, 4x6) There are some further claims about coding signs and amplitude, and some table lookup mechanism to support the above. The trouble is (for the patent holders), this is in NO WAY how JPEG works. JPEG divides a video stream into blocks (8x8 and 16x16) of pixels, and runs them through a descrete cosine transform. Basically, this turns the representation of the picture into level and percentages of vertical and horizontal waveforms of various frequencies. It then quantizes these values (reducing their size and precision), and orders them from low frequency to high frequency. Then it subjects the whole thing to a run-length algorithm optimized to eliminate zeros (which high quant values tend to do). JPEG is a lossy algorithm that takes advantage of the fact that our eyes don't pick out errors in high frequency components as well as we do low frequency. About the only claim this patent that's similar to JPEG is the Run Length Encoding. But that is covered by prior art that goes back forever. |
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