Comments on: White Knight Charges Forgent

By: anon

anon — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 21:39:18 +0000

Patent # 4,698,672 issued on October 6, 1987. Since this is a pre-gatt patent, the patent is valid for 17 years from the date it issues. 1987 + 17 = 2004.

The patent EXPIRED on October 6, 2004. That means it became PUBLIC DOMAIN on that date.

So why all the fuss, it’s gone, done for, over with. Anyone can use the invention disclosed in the patent without paying anyone else any money at all.

By: Mattias

Mattias — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:28:18 +0000

If the link above did not work, use the one on this page.

http://www.pubpat.org/Protecting.htm

The link is called “PUBPAT’s Request for Reexamination of JPEG Patent (PDF; 238KB)”

By: Mattias

Mattias — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 13:23:36 +0000

It seems that the Prior art climed is actually earlier patents from the original holder of the patent, Compression Labs Inc. PUBPAT claims that the ‘672 patent is an obvious derivate of these earlier patents.

Read more here in the request for reexamination:
http://www.pubpat.org/Chen_‘672_Reexam_Request.pdf

By: loki

loki — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 12:34:16 +0000

to bad everyone that already paid them doesn’t get their money back…

By: c10n.info

c10n.info — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 07:19:28 +0000

The US Patent Office has granted the Public Patent Foundation’s request for a reexamination of the patent.

By: S

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 05:22:18 +0000

9 figures confirmed.

From Forgent’s own web site:

http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=forg&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=812280

“Since its inception more than three years ago, Forgent’s intellectual property program has generated more than $105 million in revenues primarily from licensing the ‘672 Patent to more than 50 different companies in Asia, Europe and the United States.”

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 03:55:29 +0000

I got my orders of magnitude a little mixed up - I was thinking 8 figures = 10^8. Classic fencepost error, mea culpa.

By: Chisum

Chisum — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:53:08 +0000

Forgent cleared 8 figures ($10,000,000) against one manufacturer alone. They are likely well over 9 figures with this by now. They are the new Lemelson.

There are several good essays on why this is happening in the software industry. The best exlpanation is that for the first 20-30 years of software development there was no patent protection for software, so there is not much documentation of what was being done. Everybody relied on trade secret protection and kept everything secret. Now, people are able to get patents on ideas they think are new, but really are just not well documented. The only silver lining is that current developments are very well documentes, so this phase can be outgrown eventually.

By: Heliologue

Heliologue — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 01:54:24 +0000

We’ll just have to wait and see. I would love to see Forgent go the way of SCO. Hopefully some more big names start fighting.

By: Bob M

Bob M — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 17:09:53 +0000

Does anyone knows what prior art they are talking about?

By: Sachin Garg

Sachin Garg — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 16:58:57 +0000

Many big companies are already fighting against Forgent’s patent, some have even given up. Now that PUBPAT has found some prior art, this definitely is good news.

You can check here for PUBPAT’s original application and check this for more stories on Forgent.