JPEG death seems imminent
Posted by Mark Nelson on 19th April 2006 | Permanent Link
It’s bad enough that Forgent is suing everyone in sight for claimed JPEG patent violations, now we read that Philips is picking up the baton, starting by suing Kodak. Who knows where this will end?
People have been grousing about the patent system for a long time, and while we see small reforms from time to time, not much has changed. And truthfully, a big part of the reason is that the system works well for big companies like Philips and Kodak. They have hefty IP portfolios and are usually well equipped to do battle in this arena.
But if the big companies start getting nibbled at by rabble like Forgent, they may find the system a bit more troublesome. After all, Kodak is probably going to find patents that Philips is infringing on, leading to a happy cross-licensing agreement. But this won’t happen with a company like Forgent, which produces nothing but paper.
We are supposed to be immune to patent suits on standardized IP. When it comes to things like JPEG, H.264, and so on, all the patent holders agree early on to pool their interests and offer non-discriminatory, reasonable terms to all comers.
So far, so good. But companies are now seeing that this doesn’t give them a perfect margin of safety. A complicated piece of technology like H.264 is going to have dozens of patents that float to the surface long after the standard is signed, and many will be owned by by companies that aren’t participants in the pool.
So, unfortunately, I feel that we need government action. We need to provide a mechanism whereby major standards that are going to be widely used have iron-clad patent pools. This means that we need a discovery period during which anyone can cliam to have a relevant patent. After the discovery period is over, and the patent pool is formed, we need to lock the doors against new claims.
A system like this won’t be entirely fair, and there will be problems, but for people who want to product products, it will have one incalculable advantage: it will be predictable.
Right now I would be extremely worried about developing new products that use advanced standards such as MPEG-4, JPEG-2000, and so on. In fact, I would be more inclined to use a proprietary standard like VC-1, because I could probably get Microsoft to indemnify me against outside claims. And is this the world we want to work in?
This one change to the patent process is not a sweeping change, so it might have a chance at adoption. As we know, big steps in this problem are almost impossible to accomplish. Maybe some baby steps are the best we can do for now. And this is one that I think is important.
April 26th, 2006 at 12:49 am
[...] Mark Nelson: “The use of the JPEG format is becoming so mired in patent snarls that it is quickly becoming an albatross around the necks of any companies doing imaging”. [...]
May 17th, 2006 at 11:08 am
We will use another format…
May 18th, 2006 at 6:21 am
Actually, the supreme court ruling in the us this week offers some hope.
I am not a lawyer, so my understanding may be flawed.
But it sounds as though the court is saying that we must apply the principle of “equity” to damage claims.
I think this destroys companies like Forgent, because they now have to prove that they are losing money due to infringement. Since they have no products, they can’t show they are losing money.
Right?
I think….