Monday, April 26, 2004
Forgent Sues 31 Companies For JPEG Infringements
Posted by Suhit Gupta in "THOUGHT" @ 01:00 PM
"Forgent Networks announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Compression Labs Inc., has initiated litigation against 31 companies for infringement of United States Patent No. 4,698,672 (the '672 Patent) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. Over the last two years, Forgent's intellectual property business has generated approximately $90 million from licensing the '672 Patent to 30 different companies in Asia, Europe and the United States. Forgent has sought to reach agreements on numerous occasions with all these companies, but as of today, none of the defendants have chosen to license. Forgent has retained Jenkens & Gilchrist, a national law firm, and The Roth Law Firm, of Marshall Texas, to represent it in the litigation."
Forgent has made good on their claim on JPEG and have basically sued 31 different companies, including from Apple, Adobe, Canon, Kodak, Fuji, Panasonic, Toshiba, Xerox, etc. over patent infringements. This will be interesting to watch because if Forgent does succeed, I wonder whether either the cost of cameras and/or jpeg creation/editing software will go up or we will start seeing a shift to other compression algorithms. PNG anyone?
Forgent has made good on their claim on JPEG and have basically sued 31 different companies, including from Apple, Adobe, Canon, Kodak, Fuji, Panasonic, Toshiba, Xerox, etc. over patent infringements. This will be interesting to watch because if Forgent does succeed, I wonder whether either the cost of cameras and/or jpeg creation/editing software will go up or we will start seeing a shift to other compression algorithms. PNG anyone?
