Possible blow against Forgent’s rampage?
Posted by Mark Nelson on 2nd February 2006 | Permanent Link
PUBPAT has this to say in a press release dated February 2:
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the Public Patent Foundation’s (”PUBPAT’s”) request for a reexamination of the patent Forgent Networks Inc. is widely asserting against the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) international standard for the electronic sharing of photo-quality images. In its Order granting PUBPAT’s request, the Patent Office found that PUBPAT raised “a substantial new question of patentability” regarding every claim of the patent, U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672 (the ‘672 Patent).
The reexamination request was submitted in November.
If PUBPAT were to actually get this tossed out, it would certainly be a problem for Forgent. I have to believe that everyone who has signed a licensing agreement has done so with the proviso that the agreement is only in force if the patent is in effect. Now, the big question is whether anyone would be entitled to a refund… Perhaps some folks have been wise enough to get money held in escrow until the PUBPAT action completes.
February 7th, 2006 at 11:23 am
[...] Days after the USPTO’s patent reexamination request, Forgent announced that it has concluded a Patent License Agreement with Orion Electric Co., Ltd. covering Forgent’s data compression technology embodied in U.S. Patent No. 4,698,672 (the ‘672 Patent). [...]
February 9th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
[...] And as we have already seen in Forgent’s JPEG case, it is not just the high profile companies who should shiver, as soon as the lawyers are done getting the big bucks from big players, they will come for smaller players too. Even after the USPTO’s reexamination annoucment, they have licensed it to two more companies. [...]
February 19th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
[...] This is the third such deal announced after PUBPAT announced that USPTO had confirmed that it will reexamine the patent’s validity. Other deals were with Orion Electric and Riverdeep. [...]