Who owns jpeg patent

What the patents cover The patent in question is No. The patent specifically references patent No. The spokeswoman could not answer why satellite broadcasting was excluded from the fields of use.

Interestingly, both patents Forgent cites refer to data compression schemes used in video and other applications, although Forgent is claiming they refer to static JPEG images, as well. Forgent owns approximately 40 patents, some through acquisitions, such as the merger with Compression Labs.

Approximately 35 more patent applications are pending approval, the Forgent spokeswoman said. Although claims on patents and technologies are issued frequently, enforcing them is often far more difficult. However, Forgent convinced Sony Corp. The spokeswoman said Forgent was not asking for licenses, but one-time fees. Electronics For Imaging Inc. It's also only a matter of time before the FOSS user community is large enough to have a serious impact on the continuing evolution of intellectual property law.

The sooner we reach that point, the better for everybody. The FOSS community needs to keep growing. And we all need to make sure that new users fully understand the practical implications of the freedoms they receive. User: Password:. The JPEG patent. Benefits for LWN subscribers The primary benefit from subscribing to LWN is helping to keep us publishing, but, beyond that, subscribers get immediate access to all site content and access to a number of extra site features.

April 28, This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier. The patent describes an encoding method that is clearly not like what JPEG does. Of cause, Unisys was not interested in making that difference too obvious In my mind, this would be like someone patenting the concept of "frequency modulation", then going around and telling your FM radio stations to fork over a few million dollars for IP infringements.

So here DCT is well known, but it's application to picture compression may be new. But what is a "picture" other than a sequence of bits? JPEG , but what argument does that make? Such an FM patent is not ridiculous in any way assuming you mean it was issued before FM radio was public knowledge, as the JPEG patent was allegedly issued before DCT compression of pictures was public knowledge. The JPEG patent Posted May 1, UTC Sat by piman subscriber, [ Link ] And now you reach the fundamental fiction of intellectual property law today: Despite the fact that everything on a computer is only a stream of bits some of which describe how to transform other streams of bit , we treat some of these bit streams differently than others.

Is PNG safe or are they next? It has both a solid technical pedigree--created by a research scientist well known in the image compression community--and apparently applies to the JPEG technology. In May, Forgent signed a "multimillion-dollar patent license" with Sony for the compression technology, the company said in a press release and in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A patent miracle? The focus on patents is relatively new for Forgent, a company that for more than 20 years had been known as Video Telecom, or VTel, before changing its name in August Since then, a new management team has taken the company from a maker of videoconferencing hardware with declining revenue to a video technology firm focusing on software and patents.

Its portfolio includes nearly 40 patents, with another 35 in the works. The claim to JPEG technology ownership arose from a data compression patent that Forgent acquired from videoconferencing hardware maker Compression Labs in , said Ken Kalinoski, chief technology officer for Forgent. If he's right, it couldn't come at a better time for the company, whose revenue has hit the doldrums.

In a corporate restructuring and management shakeup, the company exited the video hardware business in August and slashed more than jobs. Kalinoski believes patent has incredible potential. However, while Forgent has gotten two companies to sign its licensing agreement, sooner or later the patent will be contested.

Kalinoski believes the company is ready. Patents filed on Internet technology and business practices have taken off in recent years and are nearly always contentious. Two years ago, Unisys accelerated its program of collecting royalties on the Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, another popular format for graphics on the Web.

Unisys started pursuing licensing in earnest after the Web caught on with mainstream consumers, and it reached agreements with Microsoft and AOL in Other companies have resorted to a controversial tactic of applying for patents while pushing the technology in question in standards committees.

In , Dell Computer agreed not to enforce its patent rights for the technology included in the VL-bus graphics standards, as part of an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission.