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Newest Patent Threat to MPEG-4

Posted by Zonk on Fri Feb 10, 2006 09:41 AM
from the there-has-to-be-something,-right? dept.
Patents
Sachin Garg writes "After the notorious JPEG patent which has made many big and small names pay huge amounts to Forgent (total more than $105 million), PCMag reports that AT&T claims to have a patent covering core MPEG-4 technology and has warned Apple and others of Patent Infringement. Pentax and Nero have already paid them."
+ -
story

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[+] JPEG Patent Challenged 278 comments
ChocLinux writes "The Public Patent Foundation has filed a request at the US Patent Office to revoke Compression Labs' data compression patent, which it is reportedly using to harrass anyone that implements the JPEG format. 'CLI's aggressive assertion of the '672 patent is causing substantial public harm by threatening this international standard on which the public relies,' says Pubpat in its filing."
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  • Typical (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DoddyUK (884783) <doddyuk@gmailOPENBSD.com minus bsd> on Friday February 10 2006, @09:42AM (#14687039) Homepage

    1) Help to form new "revolutionary" file format.
    2) Wait for it to take off and become popular
    3) Use new file format popularity to hold companies to ransom thanks to the incompetancy of the current USPTO system.
    4) ...
    5) PROFIT!

    But honestly, is this the way for people to get their money nowadays? Claim "prior art" on any patent which seems convenient and then hold any company which uses the format to cut a hole in their wallet? Any patent issues should be resolved before a file format is made readily available, therefore any companies who happen to use the format will know of any pitfalls.

    I still admit that this may be nothing compared to the JPEG patent (which about 99.9% of websites use), but it still seems silly, just like any other USPTO story which is posted on /.

    Oh, and FP :)

    • Re:Typical (Score:3, Informative)

      by Hatta (162192)
      But honestly, is this the way for people to get their money nowadays? Claim "prior art" on any patent which seems convenient and then hold any company which uses the format to cut a hole in their wallet?

      That's not what prior art means. Prior art is a way of invalidating a patent by showing that the idea existed and was in use before it was patented. If MPEG-4 or something like it existed before the patent was filed, that would be an example of prior art.

      • Re:Typical (Score:5, Funny)

        by rs79 (71822) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Friday February 10 2006, @10:40AM (#14687553) Homepage
        " If MPEG-4 or something like it existed before the patent was filed, that would be an example of prior art."

        Hey I remember seeing an implementatio of what would fall under these patents twentry years ago. There were these cool videophon... oh shit.

    • You don't need your step 4 (Score:4, Informative)

      by Soybean47 (885009) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:07AM (#14687246)
      The point of a "..." or "????" step is that it's not clear how to get from the previous step to the following one. In this case, there's no "..." step. There's just proft.

    • Re:Typical (Submarine patents) (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mikael (484) on Friday February 10 2006, @11:34AM (#14688080)
      But honestly, is this the way for people to get their money nowadays? Claim "prior art" on any patent which seems convenient and then hold any company which uses the format to cut a hole in their wallet?

      This is an example of submarine patents [wikipedia.org]. You have an idea, quietly patent it, but noisily advertise the technology. Then you wait for the patents to be granted and for industry to incorporate your technology into their products. Once the market has matured, you fire off multiple patent violations in every direction. By then, the cost of removing your technology from their products will cost far more than it would to pay the license fee.
      (For digital file formats, this is especially true, since both software and hardware codecs will already have been distributed, and third party customers will have distributed their data into this format.
    • Some people claim that the US patent system is broken, but that way of expressing the problem is a bit misleading. The word "broken" implies that something undefined caused the patent system to be disfunctional. That's not what happened. The disfunctionality was caused deliberately. Those who want government corruption so that they can make money have caused the patent system to be underfunded. They've done the same to the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Here are short reviews of books about the corruption: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government [futurepower.org].

  • And I have a patent for ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by neonprimetime (528653) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:43AM (#14687042)
    And I have a patent for Windows Viruses ... so ya 'all better stop writing them or I'll sue your @ss.

    Is AT&T Serious?

  • Pay Me Instead (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mfh (56) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:45AM (#14687056) Journal
    Nobody ever taught me about how lucrative this patent business was in school. Here I am, just a small-time dev working at an electronics shop to support my family. I need to patent something!

    I think Nero paid because they don't want to be shut down. AT&T could easily hold up a small company in court for years, bleeding their profits dry. I guess someone just did the math and figured it would be cheaper to pay off the patent mafia.

    • Re:Pay Me Instead (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zeinfeld (263942) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:00AM (#14687197) Homepage
      The patent system is an utter mess but I am not sure this is really evidence of abuse. AT&T may well have a genuine claim, they have certainly spent a huge amount developing compression technologies.

      Bell labs was a patent factory, they invested billions a year on research. Bell labs is an example of how the system is meant to work. Spend a non trivial amount on research, get a limited term monopoly in the invention in return.

      There are many other patent holders getting royalties from MPEG4, why not AT&T if they have a valid claim?

      I am not opposed to software patents in general, just the junk ones, which means at least 98%. The real problem is that the USPTO does not follow the rules it is supposed to. See my blog essay [blogspot.com].

      One of the problems with the current patent system is that there are so many junk patents being circulated by the trolls that the claims of genuine inventors are devalued.

      • I think the thing that stinks is that they sit there, knowing full well that they hold the patent, and let the tech go into wide-spread use before informing anyone that they hold the patent.

        With trademarks, the rule is enforce it or lose it. Too bad the same doesn't apply to patents...

        • Re:What's the time limit? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Zeinfeld (263942) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:33AM (#14687490) Homepage
          I think the thing that stinks is that they sit there, knowing full well that they hold the patent, and let the tech go into wide-spread use before informing anyone that they hold the patent.

          I agree it stinks, in fact I have been working on a part 4 to my essay [blogspot.com] where I make the same point.

          The problem is how to get from 'this stinks' as Plankton would say,to solving the problem without creating ways to game the patent system entirely.

          One solution would be to have a requirement that patent holders have to monitor major standards efforts in their field of invention, but how do you arrive at a legal definition of a standards effort? How do you avoid the problem of someone creating a bogus standards organization for the sole purpose of creating an exclusion to a patent?

          OK I know this particular problem would not make slashdotters upset. However it would likely allow the patent trolls to stop the law being changed.

          I am not interested in just debating the problem ad nauseam on slashdot, I want to get it fixed. To do that we need to create a wedge between the patent trolls and the major corporate holders of IP.

          If you look at what free software people want and where the interests of the big computer corporations lie there is a huge overlap, probably 95%. The problem is that a small number of ultras insist on all or nothing.

            • Re:What's the time limit? (Score:4, Insightful)

              by EvilSS (557649) on Friday February 10 2006, @01:58PM (#14689271)
              I think something that should go along with an idea like this is that the USPTO should "Standards" registration. That way, when whatever working group comes up with a standard, they submit it to the USPTO, it undergoes review for patent implications by PTO -and- it is held for public comment and patent dispute for a time before being registered. After that point it should be immune from claims by any owner of patents not already attached to the registration. That way everyone knows up front what the IP implications are and it can be worked out before the standard is put into use.

              Of course, I won't hold my breath..

  • XVID? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Danathar (267989) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:45AM (#14687058) Journal
    How would this affect open source/freeware implementations of standardized codecs like H.264?

      • Re:XVID? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by cortana (588495) <sam&robots,org,uk> on Friday February 10 2006, @10:02AM (#14687207) Homepage
        A "device" either infringes on a patent or it doesn't. Independent invention is neither a license nor a defence.
          • The behavior of the software, according to current patent law, can be considered to constitute a device. This may include behavior pertaining not to its implementation, but to its interface.

              • Obviousness was:XVID? (Score:4, Insightful)

                by dwandy (907337) on Friday February 10 2006, @01:30PM (#14689099) Homepage Journal
                I know how the rules are implemented, I'm just saying what I think makes sense. Seriously, how can you call an idea original if multiple people come up with the same thing on their own, with no knowledge of each other?
                And that would be the other requirement for a patent to be granted: nonobviousness [nolo.com].
                The problem is that this test can not* easily be applied in a proper manner.
                If you place a dozen random engineers in a room, and ask them to solve a problem, you are likely to get only a couple of different solutions. Patents on these should be disallowed. Other solutions would be patentable.

                Note from the link that An invention is nonobvious if it would be viewed as an unexpected or surprising development by someone skilled in the technology of the particular field. Note that it's not nonobvious to joe-six-pack, but to someone who is knowledgeable in the field. Are we really to believe that the poor people down at the USTPO are experts in every field? Almost by definition, even if you start by hiring 'skilled' people, they lose their 'skilled' status as soon as they leave the field (due to changes in the field) to work the patent desk, and you end up with non-skilled people reviewing for obviousness.

                The patent system as designed is set up to fail...it can end nowhere other than where we are today.

                *some suggest independant review boards, but that smells like the old-boys club to me... i.e:the system will just be broken for some peope, not everyone. Perhaps patent review would be like jury-duty for engineers.... :)

  • ffmpeg? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Se7enLC (714730) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:47AM (#14687081) Homepage Journal
    What about ffmpeg? I assume that will also be affected, as they provide MPEG-4 compression/decompression. What happens when you try to collect licensing fees from an open source project?

    • Re:ffmpeg? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by HuguesT (84078)
      Actually, AFAIK the implementation of a patented technology is not per se an infringing use of the patent. On the contrary, patents are there, or at least were there initially, to make implementation of known technology easier (they are meant to make something "patent").

      As well, software patents are not valid in Europe, amongst other locales.

      Thus, the FFMPEG implementation in that light is not infringing. However *actually using* the FFMPEG library in the US for anything other than research would be. Only p

  • More like TradeMarks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RingDev (879105) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:47AM (#14687084) Homepage Journal
    Maybe I'm completely off base, but I think I remember hearing that if you don't defend your trade mark, you can lose your rights to it. Patents should be the same way, if you knowingly allow your patent to be infringed apon for 3 years and never so much as mention it to the infringer, why should you have the right to sue?

    -Rick

    • Re:More like TradeMarks (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SchrodingersRoot (943800) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:17AM (#14687345) Journal
      It's called genericization, or "genericide." If a word becomes used often enough by the public regardless of branding, the courts can declare a trademark a generic word.
      Heroin, Allen wrenches, and I think Spandex (Hence the new name Lycra) are all examples of this. There are many more, and there are plenty of companies that have trademarks that would appear to be in danger of "genericide" (the apparent legal term).

      Xerox actually was in danger of this, and started a campaign against "xeroxing", strongly suggesting that people instead "photocopy" documents.

  • Is it any wonder innovation is slowing? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Caspian (99221) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:47AM (#14687087)
    Christ. Look at the earthshaking technologies that were invented/discovered and/or popularized in the interval from roughly 1860 to 1960: Radio, the telephone, the television, the laser, nuclear fission, the automobile, the airplane, the rocket, the microwave oven, the computer...

    Now look at what we've achieved since then. Uhhh..... let's see. Um. PDAs? ... Blackberries? ... Cell phones? (read: radio + telephone)... umm ... well, our computers are smaller now, and faster?...

    I cannot help but think that the shift away from R&D, the overreliance on patents like this story, and the constant threat of being sued/bought out by megacorps have combined to slow the pace of human technological development.

    The new business model seems to be "obtain patent on a niggling detail of a process or device; sue over patent; profit!". Back in the day, the business model was "Research fascinating new things; patent them; bring them to market; profit." I'm all for a return to the old model...

    • Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thefirelane (586885) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:59AM (#14687191)
      Now look at what we've achieved since then. Uhhh..... let's see. Um. PDAs? ... Blackberries? ... Cell phones? (read: radio + telephone)... umm ... well, our computers are smaller now, and faster?...

      ummm... did you miss everything that has happened in biology and DNA lately? Electronics has just moved into the incremental consumer phase, instead of being a strict labratory science. Things like DNA sequencing, stem cells, cloning, nano-technology, and genetic engineering are where the real advancements are.

      • ummm... did you miss everything that has happened in biology and DNA lately? Electronics has just moved into the incremental consumer phase, instead of being a strict labratory science. Things like DNA sequencing, stem cells, cloning, nano-technology, and genetic engineering are where the real advancements are.

        That's nice. So where's the cure to HIV? To cancer? To the common cold? Where's the organ cloning plant? Where's the "rewrite the genes of your choice" service? Where's the designer babies shop? Whe

        • Re:Is it any wonder innovation is slowing? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by HuguesT (84078) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:50AM (#14687650)
          In the last 40 years or so, average survival rates of all cancers have grown from about 25% to about 60%. Some cancers have an over 90% survival rate.

          I leave you to decide whether this constitutes progress.

          Progress in the biological sciences is enormous and constant, but the translation from scientific understanding to treatment & prevention is slow, because it needs to be as close to 100% safe as possible. There are about half a dozen known treatments against the HIV virus that work on monkeys and cats, but few would dare try them in their own bodies.

          Compared to biology, electronics is so simple that it is child's play.

    • And to any "pro-business" (pro-patent) types... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Caspian (99221) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:03AM (#14687213)
      Before you start in on your rose-tinted "but we have Teh Intarweb now, and computers are so cheap thanks to the Free Market(TM)" drek...

      Yeah? And? Where are the flying cars we were all supposed to have? Where's our fusion energy? (Other than that big fiery lamp out in the Big Room) Where's our moonbase? Where's our Mars colony? Where's my fucking robot sex toy?

      We'd have all of this shit by now if humanity were focused more on developing as a species and less on making money with the least possible effort. We need more cooperation as a species-- and note that "cooperation" and "competition" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. During the Space Race, broad swaths of humanity came together and cooperated to compete-- the West versus the soviet East. What did we accomplish? We went from the first suborbital flight to landing on the fucking moon in less than a decade.

      THAT is what humanity can do when its priorities are aligned properly.

      Now, it's Megacorp A versus Megacorp B versus Megacorp C, and they're all so busy playing chess with patents and lawsuits, they can't be bothered to innovate. It's fucking sickening.
    • Sorry, but the new paradigm is designed to exclude the individual inventor from profiting.

      Don't worry, this won't last long because the revolution is imminent.

      We (the people of the world) are all simply going to ignore IP law. And we'll share our knowledge over the Internet. With technology designed and manufactured IN YOUR FACE.

      The world is changing, either get with it or get left behind.

    • To be fair, you should compare equivalent stretches of time; 1960 was 46 years ago, so look at 1860-1906, and you'll see that more than half your list goes away. And some of the changes that have taken place since 1960 are, I think, just as important -- as far as computers go, they're so much smaller and faster (and, just as importantly, cheaper) than I think you're looking at a difference in kind, not just degree.

      But overall, I agree with you. The suits have thoroughly bought into, and convinced judges a
    • You really need to read up on the history of that period where IP is concerned.

      The battles were far bigger and far bloodier over pants in the 1800s than they are now. The innovations you mentioned were *obvious* to many people of the time. It was common that patent applications on a new product would beat a competitor by hours. Lawsuits were rampant, technologies crushed far more often than now.

      Particularly read up on the development of the telegraph and electric systems in the US. Those were both especiall

  • MPEG-4 was introduced over 7 years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by digitaldc (879047) * on Friday February 10 2006, @09:48AM (#14687100)
    ...so why did it take AT&T this long to argue that someone is violating one of its patents?
    Isn't there something fishy about this?
    Or is suing 'late in the game' now the norm for patent lawyers?

    • Yes, that's the whole point. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by meringuoid (568297) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:51AM (#14687126)
      Or is suing 'late in the game' now the norm for patent lawyers?

      Sue early: people say 'Ah, well we'll just use some other video codec, then.'

      Sue late: people say 'Shit, we've committed our whole business to this technology. Better pay up.'

      There's more profit to be had this way, which is why it's done like this. What, you expected some ethical or technical reason?

  • Will Dirac be ready in time to rescue us? (Score:3, Informative)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) * on Friday February 10 2006, @09:49AM (#14687104)

    Some information on Dirac can be found here [sourceforge.net] and here (PDF warning) [bbc.co.uk].

  • Next gen codecs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lisaparratt (752068) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:49AM (#14687110)
    I guess Dirac [sourceforge.net]'s time has come.

    • Or rather, Theora's [theora.org] time, which not only is actually implemented in multiple popular cross-platform player softwares (VLC, RealPlayer) and has a nice converter (ffmpeg2theora), it's also - hopefully - proven to be free of patent issues. =)

      • Unfortunately, though, it's not really a next generation codec. The underlying algorithms are all rather aged. Admittedly, so are MPEG-4s, but it'd be better for the open source movement to put their weight behind something both free and with a real future, rather than something already showing it's wrinkles. With it's large archive of content, and it's fingers in the DVB pies, the BBC is in an excellent position to push Dirac to the forefront.

  • Ah the lovely patent society (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rolfwind (528248) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:54AM (#14687150)
    We moved from a manufacturing based economy to a "service" based economy.

    Now it's lovely that we are moving on from even that, and can earn money by letting others do the hard work and implementation while we can sit at the patent office all day and submit vague, obtuse applications (that read like and are about as specific as Nostradamus predictions, he predicted Hister you know!) to gain a monopoly on "methods", "software", etcetera all in the name of "innovation" (because without patent, there wouldn't be any you know. Civilization started when Romulus and Remus instituted the first patent office.....)

    A great time to be an American. It's also nice we are exporting this type of mentality to the rest of the world too.

  • Patent warfare (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lisaparratt (752068) on Friday February 10 2006, @09:58AM (#14687184)
    Surely Apple's been in the game long enough that they've got something in their IP portfolio to sting AT&T with, and thus enter a cross licensing deal, rather than licensing it straight out?

  • A bit late in the game, isn't it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stunt_penguin (906223) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:15AM (#14687309)
    If a company is going to force this kind of licensing patent issue on another company, then they should be obliged to issue this kind of legal action within a number (say 90? 120?) days of first learning about any infringement. This company has clearly waited until MPEG-4 is hugely popular, having been implemented in popular technologies like Qucktime, the PSP, in HD DVD codecs (I believe in the form of H.264), Nero Digital and Xvid..........

    If a company with any patent rights had asserted its right in the first place, then maybe they would be in the right here, but to allow a technology to grow for a number of years and then assert your claim to large amounts of money is immoral and should be illegal.

    What if a company like Apple submits and then counter-sue the company for deliberately allowing a free lunch then asserting it's patent, causing financial and legal pain to Apple et. Al.

    It's like a bar giving out water to customers and then trying to back-charge for it when they're halfway through the evening, under threat of kicking them out of the bar otherwise.

  • SBC (Score:4, Informative)

    by chill (34294) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:17AM (#14687338) Homepage Journal
    Please note that AT&T here really means SBC. SBC purchased AT&T not too long ago but kept the AT&T name. It is run by the same cocksucker who thinks Google, Yahoo and other content providers are getting a "free ride" on his infrastructure and wants to charge them for the right to travel his wires -- peering be damned.

      -Charles

  • What underlying technology? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Midnight Thunder (17205) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:19AM (#14687361) Homepage Journal
    Either its the article or AT&T, but all I could glimmer from the article is that AT&T hold the patent on some underlying technology of MPEG-4? What is this mysterious 'underlying technology'? It would be nice if there were more specifcs, but until I see it just sounds like FUD.

  • old AT&T is now part of SBC (renamed to AT& (Score:3, Informative)

    by RocketJeff (46275) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:21AM (#14687383) Homepage
    First, the article stares that the original letter about this was sent back in December of 2005 - this is before the merger/rename was completed. This means that we can't blame SBC (now renamed to AT&T) for starting this.

    OTOH, knowing how the 'new' AT&T (aka SBC) has handled things before, I don't think there is any hope of them just letting this go and ignoring that they have the patent. If anything, they now have more money and lawyers to persue other companies.

  • AT&T or SBC? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Verteiron (224042) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:26AM (#14687423) Homepage
    Didn't SBC recent buy AT&T? SBC has pursued bizarre patent claims like this before, I wonder how much of this is SBC looking through AT&T's patent portfolio and thinking, "Hmmmm...."

    If I'm right we can expect a lot more of these from "AT&T" in the near future.

    • Re:Hurting innovation (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Before there were patents, there weren't any multinational companies with huge research teams; there were guys like Whitney and Franklin, who invented things on their own.

      Before the patent was invented, if you invented a way to do an existing process or manufacture an object cheaper and/or faster and/or better, you could put all your competetion out of business.

      Of course, under this system you would be a fool to let anyone else know how to make a cotton gin or whatever. So what happened was that novel thing
    • The problem with your request is that slashdot groupthink narrowly defines profit as bad, so with such a definition no there are no good uses of patents.

      However, if we accept that we live in a money driven society and that profit isn't necessarily a bad thing then yes profits have helped many, many products come to market. For instance it is not difficult to argue that the invention of Nylon by the DuPont Company created profits that allowed for increased R&D spending that ultimately turned out Teflon
    • '' Are there any cases of patents actually helping people/companies? ''

      In the case of MPEG 4, there are dozens and dozens of patents that all the parties involved have thrown together to create that standard, and they all license them to each other. You can get a license for that whole patent pool relatively cheaply, and I guess for free if you supplied patents to the pool.

      The problem here is that AT & T is not in the pool, and that they don't have any MPEG 4 products. Apple or Microsoft couldn't do th

    • Re:How long have they been sitting on this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by yeremein (678037) on Friday February 10 2006, @10:06AM (#14687237)
      Perhaps I am confusing my types of Intellectual Property, but don't you have to show that you are actively defending your IP, or you give up your rights to it?

      You are. Trademarks must be defended, but patents don't have to be.
    • You're thinking of Trademarks. Patents don't work that way, but they damn well should.

      If a company knows it has a case - against anyone at all - and doesn't pursue it within a reasonable timescale, then that should be a defence for anyone and everyone else.

      (My 2p)

      Justin.
    • I think you better think twice about all that. It's easy to say 'down with the man,' especially when you ignore what the man's doing for you.

      When there's more money to be had in patent-mongering than in R&D, nobody is going to bother to do R&D. And I don't care how much of a FOSS zealot you are, there aren't any free projects that approach the scale of the big commercial research projects. You aren't going to go on Sourceforge and start a project to develop the next silicon wafer technology. Develop
    • Problem is AT&T is what in the top 5 largest companies in the US? I'm sure they can hire a staff of ambulance chasers just to handle this one issue. If they are on staff, then no 30% legal settlement for them - just a bonus for each company they get to fork over cash.
      Also, I do not believe there is an enforcement provision in the Patent system - although yes there is on trademarks - if you let people use them, you are seen as having allowed them to fall into public domain.
      IINAL but I think that what s

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