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  • Bijective BWT (7 Comments)

    David Scott has written a bijective BWT transform, which brings all the advantages of bijectiveness to BWT based compressors. Among other things, making BWT more suitable for compression-before-encryption and also give (slightly) better compression.

  • Asymmetric Binary System (113 Comments)

    Jarek Duda’s “Asymmetric Binary System” promises to be an alternate to arithmetic coding, having all the advantages, but being much simpler. Matt has coded a PAQ based compressor using ABS for back-end encoding. Update: Andrew Polar has written an alternate implementation of ABS.

  • Precomp: More Compression for your Compressed Files (3 Comments)

    So many of today’s files are already compressed (using old, outdated algorithms) that newer algorithms don’t even get a chance to touch them. Christian Schneider’s Precomp comes to rescue by undoing the harm.

  • On2 Technologies is Hiring

    There aren’t too many companies working on cutting edge codecs, and of those few this one is hiring. Best of luck.

  • China’s AVS Specifications Available (2 Comments)

    Its old news that China has developed their own Advanced Video Standard to avoid high licensing fees. English translation of the standard is now available, along with the IPR policy. Finally something technical that you can get your hands on to feed your appetite.

Forgent Strikes Again: with patent for digital video recording

Posted by Sachin Garg on 14th July 2005 | Permanent Link

We all remember Forgent for its sudden declaration of Jpeg Patent and the following law suits and heavy licensing costs many had to pay for using the “open standard” jpeg.

Suddenly a JPEG Patent and Licensing Fee
ISO Could Withdraw JPEG Standard
Forgent Networks Wins $25M from Sony for JPEG Patent
JPEG Patent Could Impact The Gimp
Forgent Squeezing Money Out Of JPEG, Other Patents
Forgent and Microsoft Sue Each Other Over JPEG

Forgent is back, this time claiming a patent for digital video recording. The patent relates to a computer-controlled video system allowing playback during recording. During playback, the system reads the video content from its storage component.

They have till now sued 15 companies including Philadelphia cable TV giant Comcast, cable operators Cable One Inc., Charter Communications Inc. , Cox Communications Inc. and Time Warner Inc. , as well as satellite TV providers EchoStar Communications Corp. and the DIRECTV Group Inc.

Forgent three years ago launched this intellectual property program that it says has generated more than $100 million in licensing revenue. Its patent portfolio includes its own inventions and the inventions of Compression Labs Inc. and VTEL Corp.

With Patents and Licensing fee everywhere, seems like data compression research has proven to be a highly profitable business. But what results in faster development and better/cheaper technology for users (a patented or a patent-free environment?) will always be a question of open debate.

One Response to “Forgent Strikes Again: with patent for digital video recording”

  1. Forgent Awarded New Patent on Echo Cancellation Says:
    December 19th, 2005 at 11:58 am

    [...] Permanent link

    After the initial JPEG patent, and then the patent on digital video recording, now forgent has a patent on echo cancellation. Press Release: Forgent Networks announ [...]

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 2:48 pm by Sachin Garg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.