The only thing they can continue doing is to pursue back claims for damamges on the currently valid portions of the patent, and Matt makes it sound like there’s not much there to go after.

But if it is still valid, this brings another point. Can they continue to sue others after patent expiry on the basis that others were using the patented technology when the patent was valid?

Patent 4698672 claims 1, 6, 12, 13, 25, 30, 36, 39, and 42 all seem to be slightly different wordings of claims covering RS codes (a run of first values followed by a second value or other value). All of these claims were rejected. I don’t believe the other claims apply to JPEG. The patent office upheld extensions of these claims where the “second value” or “other value” represents an amplitude, but not a sign. However, the S in RS represents a range of numbers, not an amplitude. For the case of S=1, the next bit represents a sign (-1,1) but these claims were rejected also.

This will all be moot when the patent expires on Oct. 27, 2006 (20 years after filing). The patent was already granted more than 17 years ago.

Anyway, this surely translates into more good news for the open standard.

I don’t know what type of court issued the ruling in San Francisco, so the coverage of the ruling is uncertain. However, if the court does indeed rule that the patent only covers “video data”, then it would seemingly be a lot easier for licensees to countersue for refunds.

As for Don’s comment on Linux, you are in the same situation that you were in with Unisys and the GIF patents. It’s hard to pin down who you sue for a Linux distribution. You could go after commercial vendors like Red Hat, and possibly get something. But they might try to pass the buck to the software developers, perhaps with success. And it would be awfully hard to get any money from GIMP - the best you could do there is get a cease-and-desist, in which they remove JPEG support from the package. Then you’d have to download a plugin from overseas to get it to work.

But it doesn’t seem likely now, Forgent has much bigger problems to deal with, they’re not going to waste time on Linux.

The earlier press release was about the USPTO office action that decided some claims were invalid.

The later press release relates to a more recent court ruling in San Francisco. This “claim construction” ruling defines all the disputed or ambiguous language in the patent claims, so later the court can decide if any claim is infringed. In claims where the 672 patent says “digital signals” and “processed signals” the court decided that means video data (since that is what the patent is really about), leaving open the tantalizing possibility that still image applications do not infringe those claims.

Just another step in the battle. If you read Microsoft’s original complaint (once and maybe still available on Forgent’s web site), there are about 4 other compelling ways to fight 672:

“…[672] is not infringed, is invalid
and is unenforceable, in whole or in part…”

“…CLI/Forgent’s statutory unfair competition, fraud,
negligent misrepresentation, equitable estoppel and patent misuse.”

“Forgent’s campaign to enforce the ‘672 patent stems from a history
of deception, delay and improper behavior.”

“CLI engaged in a pattern of misleading conduct, silence and
misrepresentations about the purported relevance of
the ‘672 patent to the JPEG Standard…”

Delightful reading.

1)Has anyone ever said how this patent effects Linux distributions which support JPEG and provide graphics programs which allow creation of jpegs?

Forgent hasn’t sued any Linux distributions that I know of. Are they ok or not?

2)What happens next? If 27 claims were upheld, does that mean the USPTO will issue a new patent based only on the 27 upheld claims?

Then you’re right on the money, but that is why the legal question is murky!

It is also why Rob’s comment number 5 is probably completely off base. (Although I get the feeling he’s feeling his way around in the dark on this.)

What if I replace “invalid patent” in my above comment with “invalidated claims”?

That’s what makes this not a slam dunk. The patent is still good, so you can’t just say “I want my money back, the patent I licensed was ruled invalid.” Sorry, that is not what happened.

I am not an expert on law (I am not even a beginner), but it will be hard for me to believe that they can now keep the money they gathered over an invalid patent. They got into a contract selling what was never their, seems like a crime to my _untrained_ eyes.

Or is it ok to use a potentially invalid patent to earn money unless someone proves otherwise? Maybe I can file for some ‘whatever’ patents and if they granted, make some quick money till the ‘office action’ invalidating them comes, it will take an year or two for anyone to get that done which will be enough time to make atleast some quick bucks.

A ruthless negotiator would include a clause that said they get their money back if pertient sections of the patent were ruled invalid, but Sony probably wasn’t feeling too ruthless after losing $25M in a court case.

I speculated a bit on my home page, but the truth is, those agreements are private contracts, and so nobody but the priniciples knows if they are going to be able to back out. Expect some lawsuits, and expect Forgent to drop the 30 or so they have in process.