Forgent Networks announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary, Compression Labs Inc., has initiated litigation against 31 companies for infringement of United States Patent No. 4,698,672 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division. Over the last two years, Forgent’s intellectual property business has generated approximately $90 million from licensing the ‘672 Patent to 30 different companies in Asia, Europe and the United States. Forgent has sought to reach agreements on numerous occasions with all these companies, but as of today, none of the defendants have chosen to license. Forgent has retained Jenkens & Gilchrist, a national law firm, and The Roth Law Firm, of Marshall Texas, to represent it in the litigation.
The defendants are: Adobe Systems Incorporated, Agfa Corporation, Apple Computer Incorporated, Axis Communications Incorporated, Canon USA, Concord Camera Corporation, Creative Labs Incorporated, Dell Incorporated, Eastman Kodak Company, Fuji Photo Film Co U.S.A, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Gateway Inc., Hewlett-Packard Company, International Business Machines Corp., JASC Software, JVC Americas Corporation, Kyocera Wireless Corporation, Macromedia Inc., Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, Oce’ North America Incorporated, Onkyo Corporation, PalmOne Inc., Panasonic Communications Corporation of America, Panasonic Mobile Communications Development Corporation of USA, Ricoh Corporation, Riverdeep Incorporated (d.b.a. Broderbund), Savin Corporation, Thomson S.A., Toshiba Corporation and Xerox Corporation.
The ‘672 Patent relates to digital image compression, and fields of use include any digital still image device used to compress, store, manipulate, print or transmit digital still images such as digital cameras. However, the ‘672 patent extends beyond digital cameras and includes many digital still image devices such as personal digital assistants, cellular telephones, printers, scanners and other devices used to compress, store, manipulate, print or transmit digital still images. Forgent has the exclusive right to use, license and enforce all the claims under the ‘672 Patent in all fields of use involving digital still image compression.
“Forgent is committed to developing all of its assets and technologies to maximize shareholder value. We believe we will prevail in this litigation as the ‘672 Patent is valid, enforceable and infringed,” said Richard Snyder, chairman and CEO of Forgent in the press release. “It’s unfortunate that despite the many opportunities these companies have had to license the patent, they have all declined to participate, leaving us no alternative but to litigate.”
Forgent Networks provides a spectrum of scheduling software that enable organizations to streamline the planning and execution of their meetings, helping to increase productivity and reduce costs. Forgent’s offerings include Network Simplicity’s Meeting Room Manager, which provides room scheduling, and ALLIANCE, which provides unified scheduling of all meeting logistics using the corporate calendaring platforms of Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook. Forgent also generates and licenses intellectual property related to collaboration technologies. For additional information visit [url=http://www.forgent.com]http://www.forgent.com[/url]
Hey Finland… Keep toking that dank shit brother… Your posts are making just beautiful sense…
Finn would also prove that he has HAD some, a tough task since he reeks geek.
Dave H,
I believe Steve M was probably referring to the recorded history of humanity with his few thousand year figure (which, I might add, is much less dubious than any sort of anthropology account in your average science text book).
Hey one guy, if I purchase an unlimited use license for your patent, does that mean my wife is contracually obligated to do it more? I like this idea!!
I’m getting really sick (and tired) of all the lawsuits flying around the tech world lately. A solution might be to borrow from another sector of legal protection, the trademark laws. A company must vigorously, proazctively, and with all force neccesary defend any small trademark violation to retain the trademark, or they risk having it fall into the public domain. Since Forgent (reminds me of forage..) didn’t actively use the legal system to force licensing from 1986 til now, 6 months before the limit, they didn’t do the whole due dilligence thing… throw the case out.
“… moon is actually made of cheese” – Dave H
You watch to much Wallace and Gromit. The next thing you say will be there is a robot on the moon.
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darknite
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Yes there will be unlimited use license and unlimited group use license too.
Your wife is not obligated but we will have extra feromone extension license that does the trick
Nobody
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> So there is the evidence.
It was not Dave H who wrote that moon and cheese part. It was I who wrote that. I managed to mess that. As you know from Wallace and Gromit the moon is really made of cheese
PS: Blame Canada comes from South Park.
Nobody is right though. I do watch too much Wallace and Gromit.
As for robots on the moon, The truth is out there…
Maybe you guys should rename the site to Microsoft Daily News..Being since half of you just come here to bash MS instead of actually reading the article. Or do you guys actually work for MDN to make it look like a news site with a few (Pathetic) poster boys (Almost all of you have posted in every article written)”Maybe you guys should Get A Life”.Personally, Im suprised Apple hasnt been sued for more shit..I think they are an upcoming monopoly…You people bitch and moan about MS so-called “Lack” of Choice and the Mac is just that.
Nano nano
If Apple is a golden cage. that is bad. Though it is way better than a rusty cage = M$
Upcoming monopoly sounds good… check this
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,115822,00.asp
So you do work for MDN…Sure, A Monopoly sounds great when you love the product huh? Typical Boy from Finland…So you dont argue the fact that buying a mac gives you a lack of choice?
I’m not bashing the Mac, Apple makes great products…(Except everything before OSX Sucked and I didnt and never would use that Crap)
I own a G4 iBook and a Dual 2g G5
But I keep My PeeCee Around with Linux and WinXP because I like the fact that I can Choose my (Overclockable) Hardware and Get twice the FPS in every game available.
sorry but nanook seems to be like most of the wintel people and companies…. never getting enough of saying how irrelevant Apple and its pathetic 1.x market share is, how nothing they do matters, and then turning around in the same breath and saying why they are a monoploy just like MS, and crying cause they can’t build a mac box for $100 dollars with some left over ram, and uncle ernie will give me his old hard drive…. AND then crying cause no games are available for the mac, and etc and etc.
He then went on to say that we all are bashing MS, and saying that Apple offers no choices………
Apple IS a choice, an alternative to MS, Linux, SCO, SGI, and Sun.
As for bashing MS, did he even read the article? It is about image compression. The only MS bashing were people asking why MS wasn’t listed, since they have a web browsing product that handles jpeg images. It is a legitimate question. In fact, if only sony has given into the extortion…. er ah, I mean license fee, you have to wonder why the list is only at 30 rather than 300 or 3000. jpeg is kinda used for everything on the web since the gif licensing mess from unisys. Note to Forgent, remember GIF? didn’t think so. If they continue with this course of action we will be able to ask the same of jpeg by 2006
BTW nanook nanook, so some people post in every thread. Maybe instead of reading every thread and taking notes about who posted, perhaps YOU are the one that needs to get a life. Just an observation, your mileage may vary, no warranty or guarantee implied.
my .02 plus some change, have a good weekend
Typical apple minion response.. thanks for helping me win my bet with my buddy here…:
YOU..Have a great weekend reading pathetic news from a pathetic news source….
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> BTW, Have you opened your mac lately…You are a pathetic moron..Who’s perception of the truth is blinded by your lack of brainpower..Read again..Kunt.
Cheers!
Games? Can I play games on my Mac? What is FPS?
Overclockable?
My clock is Suunto X6hr:
http://www.suunto.fi/
Did I mention that it is made in Finland?
http://www.suunto.fi/suunto/main/product_short.jsp?CONTENT<>cnt_id=10134198673939642&FOLDER;<>folder_id=9852723697223384&PRODUCT;<>prd_id=845524442490204&ASSORTMENT;<>ast_id=1408474395903526&bmUID=1082759758064
Wow that was long address
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Nanook, seriously, twice the fps? What card? And also, what do you think the best card is bang for buck?
I can’t wait to see more info on this, especially why MS is not named. It sounds like another SCO deal, wonder if MS is funding it. Funny how the DoJ is not watching MS very closely. Makes me think MS gave Ashcroft backdoor passwords to every copy of Windows currently in use.
Quoth Joel:
‘I believe Steve M was probably referring to the recorded history of humanity with his few thousand year figure (which, I might add, is much less dubious than any sort of anthropology account in your average science text book).’
Exactly. The human race may have been around for millions of years (depending on how you define ‘human’), but you’d have a hell of a time producing the documents that demonstrate prior art that far back. Sumerian clay tablets are about the oldest proof you could drag into a court of law.
Of course, those clay tablets were mostly financial records, with a few manuals of religious ritual thrown in. The suspicious lack of Sumerian porn suggests that sex is indeed a more recent invention. At least, it would suggest that to anybody stupid enough to swallow Forgent’s story.
I remember a similar thing happening 20-odd years ago, when Atari (who?) was suing everybody in sight over early video-game algorithms. The late great Creative Computing printed an April Fool’s article claiming that Atari was taking out a patent on ‘dots on a CRT screen in interesting patterns that move’. And here I thought the times had changed!
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Yes Almost Twice the frames PS…Apple Will tell you the G5 out performs any PeeCee in Graphics compression, Video Encoding and Blah Blah Blah…However, with the current PC that I run, Which is virtually Brand new (And Not Dell as I built it myself)It still Smokes the G5 in everything but Quicktime encoding…
Its faster In photoshop, Illustrator, Quake, UT 2004, Even iTunes loads faster and has better response.
ATI Radeaon 9800 Pro
AMD Athlon 64 FX 51 (Overclocked by about 350+
Abit Mobo w/ Hypertransport…
Windows XP Pro
You may blast me for using XP Pro…But when built using the correct hardware…Unlike Dell, HP, IBM, Anyone else?
You will have a completely stable system. Apples OS Runs Stable for that very reason, Its designed for a certain hardware config.
Unlike WinBlows, where you have over 500,000 drivers to support..I think that MS is where it is today for that very reason…For bringing Software that supports a Huge Range of Hardware to the masses…Apple has yet do do anything on that large of Scale. But I Digress.
I still love my G5 and It shows that a person can use the two (Mac and PC) and enjoy them ..Both…
BTW, In my 10 years of using windows, I’v never had a virus, or another catastrophic failure due to neglegence on my part….Knock on wood…
To Joe..The best bang for buck is for sure the Radeon 9600 for low end and 9800 Pro for high end.
To Finland, Sorry for the outburst, Its just that when I see a fellow Mac user raking another over the coals, I think thats pretty uncool.
Amazing arrogance and egos. What fun. Hi Finland, how you doing. You brought up a good point about patents and sex however there is only one thing to patent really. The rest, pretty well most of it is created and owned by non humanoids. It is the human lawyers that screw it up. Take some of the world’s oldest professions carpentry and prostitution. Do you think they should be trusted to humans? Cripes no. Penguins invented prostitution WAY before humans walked the planet. And carpentry, well wasps and ants do pretty well.
But are they granted recognized patents? Noooooo big insecure humans think they invented everything. Sonar, radar, missiles, nets haw, all done by other creatures.
No the one thing you humans have created and the only patent you should really have is the one that allows you to produce waste material that is toxic not only to humans but to every other living thing on the planet.
Other than that, I have not seen any thing that a human can do that was not designed long ago by some other living creature, from flying to space travel.