White Knight Charges Forgent
Posted by Mark Nelson on 16th November 2005 | Permanent Link
I’d never heard of the Public Patent Foundation (PUBPAT), but now I see that they are taking on Forgent and their ‘672 patent. PUBPAT claims they have prior art that invalidates the original Compression Labs patent.
This would be good news indeed, and published prior art is apparently what is going to be required to beat this one. The press release doesn’t say what the prior art is, unfortunately, but they do give a cogent explanation of why they are tackling the case:
“CLI is using the ‘672 patent to harass anyone that implements the Joint Photographic Experts Group (’JPEG’) format,” states PUBPAT’s Request for Ex Parte Reexamination of U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672. “CLI’s aggressive assertion of the ‘672 patent is causing substantial public harm by threatening this international standard on which the public relies.”
I won’t use this forum as a bully pulpit to fight software patents, but the ‘672 is a classic example of a problem with the system. Despite the fact that international standards bodies clear patent issues with all parties involved in the process, a maverick patent holder can emerge at any time and begin asserting rights over a technology. My guess is that Forgent has cleared close to 8 figures in US dollars on this so far. I would rather see those millions go to people who are making and selling products that use compression technology, as opposed to a company that produces nothing but lawsuits.
November 16th, 2005 at 9:58 am
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.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Does anyone knows what prior art they are talking about?
November 16th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
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.
November 17th, 2005 at 7:53 am
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.
November 17th, 2005 at 8:55 pm
I got my orders of magnitude a little mixed up - I was thinking 8 figures = 10^8. Classic fencepost error, mea culpa.
February 2nd, 2006 at 10:22 pm
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.”
February 3rd, 2006 at 12:19 am
The US Patent Office has granted the Public Patent Foundation’s request for a reexamination of the patent.
February 3rd, 2006 at 5:34 am
to bad everyone that already paid them doesn’t get their money back…
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:23 am
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
February 3rd, 2006 at 6:28 am
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)”
February 3rd, 2006 at 2:39 pm
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.