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Category Archives: Patent Alert
How Patents Hurt The Poor
Patently problematic — An important new study shows the promise, and pitfalls, of intellectual-property rights for the poor
Today, IPR law is the focus of intense interest, and it is not just lawyers who are paying attention. The original purpose of patents was to encourage innovation, and thus growth, by creating an incentive for inventors to disclose the details of their inventions in exchange for a limited monopoly on exploitation. Some argue that the modern system of IPR law is having the opposite effect
More MP3 Patent Info
MP3 Patent Info
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Overview of MP3 Royalty Rates from Thomson Multimedia
(http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html) -
Thomson Multimedia Developer and Manufacturer Q and A
(http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/developer.html) -
End User Q and A from Thomson Multimedia
(http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/enduser.html) -
Hardware Royalties
(http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/enduser.html) -
Software Royalties
(http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html)
Open Letter to Thomson from Ogg
Open Letter to Thomson Multimedia.
Thank you for setting a precedent in providing free technology until the world has become hooked on it, and then charging a lot of money afterwards. This isn’t a new idea, but we’re glad that you’ve taken a stand to ensure that this practice will continue as long as vested interests control patents on multimedia. We hope that you’ll continue in this pattern with MPEG-4, since we’ll be releasing a free MPEG-4 competitor next summer.
Lawrence Lessig Interview In Darwin
Lawrence Lessig on the future of patents (or lack thereof):
Who Should Own What?, by Todd Datz.
Also of particular interest is this mention of the MP3 patent, which media player developers will need to keep on radar.
That’s the one that’s most obvious and direct. Another threat is patents that we’ve been seeing recently, from the absurd British Telecom patent on hyperlinking to the way in which the MP3 patent is now being deployed against people who build players or record MP3s and to the way patents have been used in standards-making processes. You have these groups that get together to build a standard that other people can use and adopt. Secretly, one of the participants in the standards-making process early on files a patent for the basic idea. Nobody knows the patent has been filed because you don’t have to reveal that information. Once the standard is out there and adopted, the company comes forward and says, “I have a patent on that standard and you’ve got to pay me to use it.”
JPEG Committee Not At All Amused
The JPEG Committee doesn’t appreciate Forgent Networks recent license royalty demands based on patents it obtained in a fire sale from Compression Labs, and is setting up a Prior Art website to help stop this kind of thing from happening in the future. (You know, when companies contribute a technology to an open standard in good faith and then go back on their word or sell off the patent they’ve “contributed” to the highest bidder.)
Maybe these contributions need to be more formal? (Um hmm. And maybe I need to just shut up and stop talking crazy before somebody gets hurt…I know, I know…)
JPEG – There’s a new Sheriff in Town
Forgent Networks owns JPEG now, and it wants everyone to prepare to pay to use the format now.
“We wanted to ensure the investment community and the general public are clear about the terms of our valuable JPEG data compression technology, one of the many technologies we have in our patent portfolio,” stated Richard Snyder, chairman and chief executive officer at Forgent. “We are in ongoing discussions with other manufacturers of digital still cameras, printers, scanners and other products that use JPEG technology for licensing opportunities.”
See the articles:
JPEG Patent Becoming A Battleground
by Michael Singer, for Internet.com.
and
JPEG Patent Claim Sparks Concern, by Joanna Glasner, for Wired News.