RIM inks deal for JPEG patent
Posted by Sachin Garg on 29th October 2005 | Permanent Link
ZDNet: The one-time perpetual license covers all of Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM’s BlackBerry devices and its BlackBerry Connect messaging service, which allows wireless always-on access to e-mail and corporate data on portable devices.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Forgent spokesman Michael Noonan noted that the Austin, Texas-based software maker may have discounted its usual rate for RIM in the same way that it did for Sony in 2002, when the Japanese entertainment company paid $16 million to freely use JPEG technology. Usual royalty rates for Forgent’s JPEG patent vary between a quarter of 1 percent and 1 percent of the retail cost of the device, hardware or software, Noonan explained. RIM’s license is all-inclusive to avoid a cost breakdown of each device with RIM’s technology.