Petteri Pyyny
22 Jul 2002 15:44
As an update to the JPEG story from last week, where American company called Forgent Networks announced that it owns core patents that cover JPEG picture compression technology and wanted companies who use its technology, to pay licensing fees.
Anyway, The Reg has an excellent coverage of this topic. Basically the latest stuff includes the fact that Forgent has already at least one licensee, Sony Corp, who has paid $15M in licensing fees to Forgent.
JPEG committee who develops JPEG standard and the new JBIG standard, is calling people to provide evidence of prior art to the patent claims. If there are existing evidences that the technology Forgent has patented, has been used before their patent application, it renders the patent worthless.