What’s up with the JPEG patent company Forgent
Posted by Sachin Garg on 26th August 2006 | Permanent Link
A brief look at Forgent’s stock’s performance over the last year and the notice they received from Nasdaq is no longer surprising.
The Company received a Nasdaq Staff Deficiency Letter indicating that its common stock is subject to potential delisting from The Nasdaq National Market. The Deficiency Letter was issued due to the bid price of the Company’s common stock closing below the minimum $1.00 per share requirement
The “claim construction” ruling and Pubpat initiated claim invalidation seems to have taken its effect.
But it still might be too soon to write off Forgent. They claim a 20 patent portfolio, and after their success with Jpeg patent, they have continually focused on technologies already in popular use.
For example their patents on echo cancellation and on digital video recording. And they are activley pursuing companies on these, hoping to replay their success story.
It still needs to be seen how well this goes for them.
However USPTO has been reconsidering various patent laws these days and that may come as a breath of fresh air for many.
Also, the courts have ruled that the principles of equity apply, meaning that a court considering slapping an injunction on the infringer must consider how much damage is really being done. This is bad news if a company that owns a patent only has it for the purposes of suing other people.
August 26th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Thier site mentions only the jpeg and recording patents.
August 27th, 2006 at 3:30 am
I read that ‘20′ in their current press releases and found about that echo cancellation patent in an old press release. They also have one patent on improving the quality of pictures in videoconferencing. That’s all I know about their portfolio.
Maybe they don’t see other patents to be of as much value as these, or maybe they are waiting for the related technoogies to get more popular before they strike.