Public Patent Foundation challenges JPEG patent

[Posted November 16, 2005 by corbet]

The Public Patent Foundation has announced that it has filed a formal challenge to the image compression patent currently being used by Forgent in its shakedown attempts. The full request for reexamination is available in PDF format.

Public Patent Foundation challenges JPEG patent

Posted Nov 16, 2005 18:25 UTC (Wed) by ajax (guest, #7251) [Link] (4 responses)

It is clear from reading the PDF that the Public Patent Foundation
thinks the claims of patent in question are made obvious by another
patent that was filed a year earlier.

However that other patent is also owned by the same company (CLI).
So it seems that if the JPEG patent is invalidated, then CLI can
use that earlier patent to claim infringement against all creators
of JPEG software.

Public Patent Foundation challenges JPEG patent

Posted Nov 16, 2005 19:05 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (1 responses)

The earlier patent mentioned in the re-examination request, number 4,541,012, was issued September 10, 1985, which is more than 20 years ago. That means it has expired.

Public Patent Foundation challenges JPEG patent

Posted Nov 16, 2005 19:08 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Also, the complaint charges Compression Labs (the company bought by Forgent) with misconduct for not listing the earlier patent as prior art for the later patent, as well as other relevant patents (see page 2 of the PDF).

Public Patent Foundation challenges JPEG patent

Posted Nov 16, 2005 19:06 UTC (Wed) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link]

I understood that the current patent is currently expiring so a year older
patent would be already expired?

Public Patent Foundation challenges JPEG patent

Posted Nov 16, 2005 19:13 UTC (Wed) by kirkengaard (guest, #15022) [Link]

Not precisely. Tescher et al (4,541,012) is more specific as to the field it covers. Note in the PubPat argument that "Tescher et al teaches ...", not "Patent 4,541,012 covers ...". By making the methodology for compression understandable, and explaining the concepts involved, Tescher et al taught a generation of people how to compress a variety of similarly constituted things, while patenting a method for reducing video bandwidth.

Patents make public a vast amount of information while obtaining a relatively small benefit, sometimes. :)