31 Lawsuits Filed Over Alleged JPEG Patent 471
dcrouch writes "Compression Labs has initiated a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas against 31 major companies for infringement of its 4,698,672 patent. The patent, filed in 1986, includes 46 claims for various embodiments of digital signal compression technology and reportedly covers JPEG compression. From the dates on the face of the patent, it appears that it will expire in October 2004. This looming date may have prompted the suit. Compression Labs will certainly have a fight on its hands. A major question will be why the patentee waited so long to stake its claim. The Eastern District of Texas court has established special patent rules that help speed the progression of litigation."
Submarine patents? (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought there was some specific legislation to stop "submarine patents" like this?
Beefy.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:4, Informative)
It's not a submarine patent, it was granted and published back in 1987.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:3, Funny)
Arthur Yes, I went round to find them yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call much attention to them had you? I man like actually telling anybody or anything!
Prosser The plans were on display.
Arthur Hah, and how many average members of the public are in the habit of casually dropping around to the local planning office of an evening. It's not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in one on the off chance that some raving beurocrat had wanted to knoc
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:3, Interesting)
You can vote for me in 2012, if voting's still legal.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Until a few years ago, US patents were not published until granted and the term was 17 years from grant. Consequently, an application could be kept pending for 20 years or more by filing continuation and continuation in part applications, all of which would have been secret. The aim was for the patent to emerge into a well developed industry to maximise potential income. Patents obtained with this tactic are what are referred to as submarine patents.
Now almost all US patent applications are published 18 months from the filing/priority date and the term is 20 years from the filing date. Thus, the existence of the application is public and delaying grant does not push the expiry date into the future, thereby removing the rationale for submarine patents.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:3, Informative)
The person filing the patent does his best to draw out the process and make modifications to the patent in order to claim prior ownership of other people's recent work.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:2)
I thought that patenting a process or ides, then letting people use it for years on end, before filing a claim for infringement was a submaris. Maybe there's another word for this practise.
What you're describing,
sounds to me like a wrongly granted patent.Beefy
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:3, Informative)
No, once the patent is issued, it's considered public, and it can't be hidden.
But if you delay the issuing of your patent... then you can do some very evil things...
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SubmarinePatent [c2.com]
Was Feynman's Submarine patent a Submarine? (Score:3, Interesting)
In his classic "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" Richard Feynman explains how he "earned" the patents on nuclear submarines and nuclear airplanes. At that time, neither technology existed. On the other hand, afaik he never tried to extort royalties from the US Navy for the USS Nautilus, so perhaps that doesn't count as a real submarine...
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:5, Informative)
The goal is to exploit a loop hole in patent law where validity of patent is counted from the date when it was granted, and not from date where it was applied for. So, if you've got a patent application, and you know that no competitor is even close to being able to commercially exploit it, you (the application) just slow down the approval process as best as you can (by filing papers as late as possible, by introducing trivial amendments which forces the patent office to restart the procedure from the beginning, etc.). You keep on stalling like this until you see that a competitor is almost ready to infringe: you then let the application proceed at normal speed, and enjoy 25 years of monopoly from that date on.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:2, Informative)
There are other important dates such as the date the application is published (usually around 18 months after the filing date) and various deadlines - especially for PCT (WIPO) applications but a patent is retroactiv
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:5, Informative)
For patents filed prior to June 8, 1995, the length of the term is 17 years from date of issuance, regardless of the length of prosecution. Thus, you can keep the patent sitting in the patent office using continuing applications and other tricks, and then change the claims of the patent to closely match emerging technology. Also, because patent application publication did not automatically happen in apps filed 1995 and before, people would not have an opportunity to see that there was a pending patent that could cover their technology.
Apps filed between June 8, 1995 and May 28, 2000 have a term of 20 years from date of filing. However, this term of 20 years can be extended based upon delays in prosecution regarding secrecy orders, interferences, and/or successful appeals. (The URAA changed this law).
Apps filed after May 28, 2000 are given 20 years after filing, but they can be adjusted based upon on the number of days of delay caused by the PTO minus the number of days delay caused by the applicant. These adjustments are rather complicated, and usually not worth getting into (unless it is a pharm patent where keeping generics off the market mean huge money per day).
While I might be a patent lawyer, the above is not legal advice in any way.
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:2, Informative)
Estoppel (Score:4, Insightful)
Just my
Re:Submarine patents? (Score:4, Interesting)
cheers- raga
PNG (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PNG (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PNG (Score:4, Informative)
Re:PNG (Score:3, Funny)
It's all pr0n to me.
Re:PNG (Score:3, Interesting)
I would recommend the new format embrace the features of Camera RAW modes so as to avoid a common publishing format but a proprietary storage format.
A Digital camera, like film captures higher highs and lower lows than paper can print and thus in publication, a great deal of data is "discarded".
A smart format would account for the possibility of extra data while at the same time including a presentation optimized perspective.
AIK
Re:PNG (Score:5, Informative)
PNG is meant for *lossless* raster art.
JPEG is meant for *lossy* "photo realistic" art.
TOM is meant for pepsi.... need more pepsi....
Re:PNG (Score:4, Insightful)
JPG is still the best image format for photographs.
Re:PNG (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PNG (Score:4, Interesting)
Why do you say that JPEG is the best image format for photographs? Because it's so widely used? JPEG is a lossy format -- regardless of what you do with it. PNG looks far better, although it's not as well compressed. However, with storage technology where it is, wouldn't you want your photos to start off in a lossless format -- then compress it down with some lossy compression scheme later?
Re:PNG (Score:4, Informative)
After a certain point, compression isn't hindering the quality that much, and the amount of space that is saved is more important than the small amounts of the quality that are lost. Just like the mp3 format works so well by slimming down the things the human ear can't hear, jpg works by blending and compressing images in way that the human eye can barely tell the difference while saving optimum amounts of space.
Re:PNG (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a loaded question. When I create audio files, the answer is: I'd absolutely store wav (and similar) files on my hard drive. Why would I ever want a compressed master?
When I rip a CD, I store them as MP3's. The point is that original files shouldn't be compressed using a lossy format (unless you don't care...I do). When it's time to distribute the file, sure, crunch it down.
Re:PNG (Score:3, Insightful)
To save diskspace, perhaps?
As soon as the light passed through the camera lens, information was lost by distortion. When your camera store that light as a digitised or encoded in the grains of film, more information was lost. If that film was then digitally imaged into a PNG, even more infor
Re:PNG (Score:5, Insightful)
Great comparison. For one generation. But when you're editing pics you don't want to keep saving to a lossy format because each save will increase the noise. How would that pic look after 10 - 20 generations of saves as a JPEG?
You can compare single generations all you want and you'll get the same results (the JPEG looks great!) but that absolutely does not indicate thats how you should save your masters.
TW
Re:PNG (Score:4, Informative)
What are you smoking? I'm talking practical here. Of course data is lost in a recording. That's the nature of most any kind of recording. The point is to cut out loss wherever possible. To record an image one has to use a lens (or series of lenses), and a medium to record the light onto (either film or CCD). These are unavoidable. However, a lossy compression scheme is avoidable. Furthermore, if one is going to save a compressed image, edit it, then recompress it using a lossy scheme -- it adds up. By your logic, there's no reason to clean your optics, because you're losing data one way or the other -- this is nonsensical.
You're also talking about the still-semi-obscure JPEG 2000 standard/codec, which you fail to mention isn't nearly as easy to use or widely avaialble as JFIF or PNG. I think this is a case of "my bike's made out of lead and I like it!". PNG is out there, it's free, full featured and it works very well.
Re:PNG (Score:5, Insightful)
To save diskspace, perhaps?
It's your master! You don't want a lossy compressed master!... that's insane!
Note how the high-quality lossy jpegs are indistuingishable from the lossless formats...
Of course they are distinguishable, they're "lossy". Blow them up, manipulate them, do whatever you do, yeah, if you just look at them they're indistinguishable, but if you do anything else with them, the smashed-up hard edges, "ringing" artifacts, and all that stuff will quickly cause problems.
Ugh. I hate asking people for photos or clipart for websites because I know they'll do something to it to make it "easier to email".
Cropping, framing, adjusting the contrast and colours for a final image is horrible once somebody's done this to an image.
Re:PNG (Score:4, Insightful)
Could someone please call the recording studios and let them know they should just record to 8 track tape, and encode the audio not once but twice as 128kbps MP3s and only then rip them to CD before selling them, just because they will have lost information between the singer and the microphone?
I think maybe you're not familiar with the prupose of masters. In a nutshell, you set up your environment in order to minimize the information loss, then you record that information as perfectly as possible. That pretty much applies to the process of recording anything. The master needs to be of the highest quality possible because every generation created from that master will _at_least_ share the same defects and artifacts.
the difference between a PNG master and high quality JPEG master is negligibleYou're right, but PNG and JPEG are compressed, and again the parent poster was talking about uncompressed masters (his analog was WAV vs. MP3.) The difference between RAW or TIFF(ie. the WAV or CD in his example) and JPEG or PNG (ie. the MP3) are monumental.
Re:PNG (Score:3, Informative)
WAV files (was Re: PNG) (Score:4, Informative)
Strictly speaking, a WAV file can contain any of dozens of representations of the audio data, many of which are lossy compressions. The WAV format just defines the file structure. There is an entry in the header that specifies the audio data representation. Much of the time WAV files contain linear PCM data, which is uncompressed, but they don't have to. In fact, theres no reason in principle that a WAV file couldn't contain FLAC compressed data, though I believe that no FLAC identifier code has been registered.
Re:PNG (Score:5, Informative)
This offers the advantages of the PNG/MNG file-format specifcations (transparency, meta-data, &c) along with the JPEG compression algorithm, and is meant to be a replacement for JFIF (the JPEG file image format) which is the commonest JPEG-based file format.
BTW, this story sounds *very* BAAD...
[woops...formatted now]
Re:PNG (Score:3, Insightful)
The post you're answering (and most posts in this thread) is specifically referencing photos. PSD is fine but its intent is not for storing photos, nor is it necessary for photos. A photo is by definition one layer. And TIFF can support any exif data/notes that you'd want included, along with color space information.
Re:PNG (Score:2, Informative)
Re:PNG (Score:5, Interesting)
My point is that many people are still unaware of why PNG is better, despite having more than adequate time to become educated.
The real trouble is that microsoft still hasn't fixed png support, and the hacks, such as IE7 (by dean edwards) and sleight (www.skyzyx.com) aren't perfect.
For now, my site looks awesome in Moz/Opera compliant browsers, but only so-so in IE, and its a fully w3c compliant site.
JPG's are also useful in their own right, but lack certain features that make png's better. Interestingly enough, PNG's do well enough with photos for my admittedly low standards.
Re:PNG (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, jpg is smaller, which makes it great for web-photo images.
I disagree that I (or most others) am trying to position png as super-format. You act as if microsoft not fixing alpha-channel support in png isn't a problem. It is a problem, and its a huge one. Without alpha-cannel support png's are virtually worthl
Re:PNG (Score:2)
Yes, but in a couple of years some smart company will spring some PNG related patents on us. Didn't we all see this with gif? And then moved from gif to jpg (and png) to avoid that patent issue?
Maybe now would be the time to move back to gif instead: At least the patents on gifs are expired by now!
Interesting Idea (Score:3, Informative)
When baud was 300, the difference between a JPG and BMP/PNG type was HUGE. Now the compression gains from the jpg standard is decreasing as bandwidth increases (i.e. the 0.01 seconds saved for downloading a jpg compared to a png is negligible.)
Go go png format!
Re:Interesting Idea (Score:3, Informative)
PNG will only slow these people's experience down (for a marginal enhancement of experience . . . I don't know anyone com
The interesting part about PNG... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure how exactly PNG works, but I assume it has some "easy" and "hard" pixels to encode. If you accepted some loss to quality, for the bonus of getting lots of extra easy pixels, could you get near-JPG performance out of it?
Obviously, this would be a rather major job to do and I have n
Re:The interesting part about PNG... (Score:3, Insightful)
JPEG2000 uses wavelet compression and do look better than regular JPEG to me (for the same size of course). Only problem is that it's covered with patents.
So, wavelet formats have materialzed, but where are the open-source implementations? I want the Ogg equivalent for picture formats!
Looks like we should have seen this coming a long (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/07/18/jpegs_are
oh and here are some more related articles
Some Google results [google.com]
This Just In (Score:5, Funny)
Why this Opportunism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why this Opportunism? (Score:2)
Re:Why this Opportunism? (Score:2)
While you're at it, remove JPEG support from Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and The Gimp.
Gimp (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gimp (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Gimp (in DEEP trouble) (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Gimp is in deep trouble. Rumor has it they'll have to fork over 50% of their profits.
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting omission (Score:5, Interesting)
They can't be worried about hitting companies that can afford lots of lawyers as there are some big names in that list of companies already.
Anybody know whether the beast of Redmond has paid for a license?
a little googling... (Score:2, Informative)
This isn't new. It doesn't look like Microsoft was ever in talks with these people. I'd guess they didn't sue them because they didn't want to get their butt handed to them by a company that gives out 1.9 billion like candy.
Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember yesterday?
The first two Score-5 responses come up as follows:
and now the lawsuit announcement on the next day. Interesting coinky-dink.
Who are the groups involved? The 3D Industry Forum [3dif.org]'s web site has a FAQ containing a partial list of members:
Compare to the list of defendants in the Forgent suit:
Well, from my limited perspective, it appears to me that the groups are largely disjoint as the 3D forum is concerned with graphics and the lawsuit defendants are largely video imaging and photography related. Adobe apparently has its hands into both.
Somebody else [slashdot.org] already wondered by Microsoft wasn't listed, but I'd be more inclinded to ask, Why not Sony since they are into photography as well (Digicam, Cyber-shot). Maybe they have licensed JPEG, who knows?
What the hell (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What the hell (Score:3, Informative)
If I want to invent something or research something or whatever, the first thing I do (and this is standard practice in research) is do a literature search for bachground info - no use reinventing the wheel etc. Any
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Funny)
If I want to invent something...
I woke up this morning and I want to invent something...hmmmmm....let's see.....oh yhea an account....yheah that's it an account...
Oh! it's already done? By the credit card companies. Oh I'll just add the word Internet....
That's one click shopping you say?
No problemo I'll just add "wireless netwoking". coolio off tho the patent office I say. Then off to bed.
Now that was a hard days work. I wonder what I will inv3nt tomorrow? Yeah that's it I'll replace the vowels with numbers and patent that as a security feature.
Re:What the hell (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Insightful)
The defendants will claim noninfringement, implied license, estoppel by laches, and that the patent is invalid. At worst, they should be barred from continuing to infringe the patent. Some of them may be able to live six months without it, depending on how much stock is already in the retail channel.
Let's actually have some facts here..... (Score:3, Informative)
Secondly, they are only entitled to damages for the 6 years preceeding the filing of the complaint (see e.e. 35 USC 286).
Thirdly, according to other stories and press releases, they did try to negotiate licensing agreements with these companies but couldn't reach an agreement. Patent lawsui
Are they stupid? (Score:2, Funny)
Isn't that why IBM is an international company - because they can't fit all their lawyers in the USA?
Reaches for tinfoil - why wan't Microsoft listed? Are there no use jpeg' used in Windows?
Uhh... what are they on? (Score:2)
"The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for processing signals to remove redundant information thereby making the signals more suitable for transfer through a limited-bandwidth medium. The present invention specifically relates to methods and apparatus useful in video compression systems. Typically, the system determines differences between the current input signals and the previous input signals using mean-square difference signals. These mean-square signals are proc
Shouldn't affect commodity JPEG (Score:5, Informative)
The hierarchical mode represents an image at multiple resolutions. For example, one could provide 512x512, 1024x1024, and 2048x2048 versions of the image. The higher-resolution images are coded as differences from the next smaller image, and thus require many fewer bits than they would if stored independently. (However, the total number of bits will be greater than that needed to store just the highest-resolution frame in baseline form.) The individual frames in a hierarchical sequence can be coded progressively if desired. Hierarchical mode is not widely supported at present.
My take is that this "hierarchical mode" extension is the part covered by the patent. The problem is that, assuming the FAQ article is correct, most implementations of JPEG decoding we encounter won't support it, meaning most people aren't going to be encoding their JPEG's this way since it would be incompatible with mass-market JPEG implementations. It sounds more like something a company would use as part of a proprietary format built on JPEG.
Bottom line: don't expect this to have any ramifications for Mozilla, IE, etc.
Doctrine of Laches... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Doctrine of Laches... (Score:5, Informative)
Politicians wake up (Score:5, Funny)
ME: Hi,
SHOPKEEPER: Hey Theo how can i help you?
ME: id like this and that please,
SHOPKEEPER: Certainly ill charge it to your tab?
now if you came into MY court with this patent mr amazon i would fucking get down from my stand and BEAT YOU WITH MY GAVEL! fuck you!
damit patents piss me off so much.
Panic among Slashdot readers (Score:3, Funny)
"How many JPEGs do I have on my hardrive?"
"Does it apply to MPEGs aswell?"
"Would a judge entertain a porn as free speech argument?"
How does this affect (Score:3, Insightful)
Sucks too, just viewing websites now with images turned on is a hassle with this old machine and slow dialup, I usually leave them off unless I REALLY need to see the image for navigation purposes or it's a news item I want to see, etc. And that's with low k JPEGs. If they were BMPs or PNGs it would be much worse.. hmm..
Would it also mean that all the millions of websites out there that are using JPEGs are in potential violation if they haven't paid a license fee of some sort?
This is nutz, but there ya go on software patents, we either live with them as the cyberworld gets more complicated, or scrap the whole notion of patenting intangibles and use a different business model with "computing", something I am greatly in favor of.
Why you'd wait to file suit (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)
s/video conferencing hardware/operating systems/
s/August 2001/August 2002/
s/Video Telecom, or VTel/Caldera/
s/Forgent/SCO/
s/a video technology firm/litigious bastards/
JPEG, JPEG2000, and frivolous lawsuits. (Score:4, Interesting)
It seems to be, based on the links here that they don't own JPEG, but have patented a technology that is identical to JPEG. JPEG developed the same technology seperate from them (correct me if I am wrong).
What I am wondering about is the new JPEG2000 standard. Do they own that?
Just FYI JPEG2000 is very similar to JPEG in design except it uses the Discrete Wavelet Transform instead of the Discrete Cosine Transform to transform the 8x8 pixel blocks. It is less blocky than JPEG in general.
Seems to me this is a little stupid as neither company invented DCT or even the Huffman and run-length coding that make up the components of this scheme, and all of the components are public domain intellectual property.
This litigation seems like a cash grab more than protecting there IP. They wait until everyone is freely using it (and for the most part believing it is a free technology) and then they sue the largest companies using it (hey why arn't they sueing Microsoft?).
MPEG not JPEG (Score:5, Insightful)
"The present invention specifically relates to methods and apparatus useful in video compression systems..."
and
"Typically, the system determines differences between the current input signals and the previous input signals..."
(Emphasis mine)
JPEG is not a video compression system, nor does it use differences with previous "signals." MPEG, WMV, and before that Indeo, Cinepak, and other methods of compressing video (almost always) do.
Xesdeeni
PNG vs JPEG (Score:3, Informative)
I've been working as a designer for over ten years (I started back when it used to require a degree, not just a computer). It's been my experience that JPEG is one of the most abused graphic file formats in general. It is good for the web...it's intended purpose...but it is awful for everything else. Unfortunately, everyone insists on using it for everything else...printing, digital cameras, stock art...all apparently blissfully unaware that this LOSSY algorithm is slowly but surely leeching the color data from their pictures every single time they save them. The result: Precious memories that print with muddy colors, photos with ugly artifacts in them, and unhappy designers who have to explain to their clients why there is no Photoshop cure for being a moron.
PNG's are great. They support multiple levels of alpha transparency, retain all their data, and compress even photos very well. They are a much better option for a multi-purpose format. (They would be even better if M$ would get off their collective asses and implement them properly in IE. Currently, IE treats them as if they have only one level of transparency)
JPEG's can still be smaller, at the expense of quality, but broadband may eventually make that moot. I fear we will all still be using JPEG's even then, though.
I've seen video games still using the PCX format, which is a crap format if ever their was one. Old formats die hard.
Do yourselves a favor: Use JPEG's on the web if you want, but archive your pictures with another format, like PNG, TIFF or Photoshop (PSD). CMYK images need to be saved as TIFF's or PSD's...ironically, the proprietary PSD is probably more universal.
Re:PNG vs JPEG (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PNG vs JPEG (Score:3, Informative)
The effect is the same, though: inconsistent gamma among different browsers.
Good observation.
Re:PNG vs JPEG (Score:4, Informative)
Particularly notice the section on colorspace information [libpng.org], where there are clearly specified tables for defining the CIE x,y chromaticity of the R, G, B components, the white point, the image gamma, and the freaking ICC color profile.
It seems the software you use can't create gAMA tables in its PNG output. Hence it is your software that sucks, not the PNG format.
And this entire discussion is moot if the browsers don't support the gamma adjustment. Gonna blame that one on the PNG creators also?
Hard to let go (Score:3, Insightful)
As part of my job, I sometimes apply for patents. (Which first goes to an internal company board to be judged if it's worth the cost of a real search-and-file) I've submitted 5 so far, and even though all of them we totally new concepts for me, only one of them survived a patent search. I have to admit that when the search committee has presented me with clear prior art, it's hard not to feel some sort of stupid "you sneaky bastards" type feelings directed at the party who thought of the idea before me. (Of course, being a sane person, I realize this is irrational, and get over it quickly.) Still, it's a blow to the ego.
A the corporate level, I don't think things are much different. I can see some senior mucky-muck at a company which had been issued an overly broad patent for say, "Using a cathode ray tube to display the output of a computer" having trouble seeing the difference between reason and greed.
Sometimes corporations have larger egos and senses of entitlement than even the most arrogant people. I suspect some manager got sort on funds, heard some tech say something like: "Heh, yeah, techinically we own JPEG..." and got visions of an easy buck.
Odd analogy (Score:3, Interesting)
Continuing, lets say that I didn't limit the reproductive viability of the corn in my engineering work. So after the first few paroducts came to market and there was an ample opportunity to harvest the kernals for commercial re-sale. Every Southern States and TSC has a house brand of Overzeetop Super Corn. It's everywhere - on the grocery shelves, in the newspapers, on the web...the corn is ubiquitous worldwide.
Here's my question: If, after a dozen years, I decide to sue every maker and distributer of my corn, do I really have a case?
Naturally, IANAL, but I do know that you can lose a trademark if it is not defended. This seems awfully similar, but the laws regarding these two are different. Is there an equivalent loss of rights for a patent?
A SCO business model (Score:4, Interesting)
Compression Labs never enforced the JPEG patent and now, with only months remaining before the patent expires greedy lawyers are trying to extort cash out of users.
The USTPO and/or Congress should outlaw submarine patents, and tighten rules to cancel patents if prior violations are massive and public knowledge but the patent holder has made no attempt to enforce the patent.
Joint Photographic Experts Group Sues 412 Users (Score:3, Funny)
In other news, the entire US Congress was found to have absolutely no clue as to the meaning of the words "The Congress shall have power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Details and Prior Art (Score:3, Informative)
(Remove the space after "...pat" - the slashdot formatter mangled the URL)
We could abandon JPEG, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Wavelet technology produces better compression ratios with greatly reduced human-visible artifacts than JPEG. These clowns might as well be tomorrow's buggy whip manufacturers.
If you haven't checked out wavelets, you're missing massive coolness. Edges between different tones are where our eyes get their best cues, and JPEG indiscriminately "blocks up" edges. Wavelets preserve edge information and do it well at compression ratios that JPEG uses to create low-rent Mondrian ripoffs.
Scuzball tactics... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they're dicks. We've seen this with GIF
1. Obtain a patent to something. (prerequisites: 1. You can fog a mirror 2. You can afford the application fee 3. You have third grade writing skills)
2. Don't enforce it until and unless it becomes a widely used standard.
3. Start threatening people and rake in the cash from those few companies that cave out of fear of the courts.
4. Profit.
5. Laugh at being one of the few people who doesn't have a "???" step.
Jpeg: Can't we do better? (Score:3, Insightful)
People keep saying that .jpeg is still the best for photographs over .gif (without question) and .png (possibly). But that's not saying a lot, because .jpegs still suck, they just are not that good even for photographs. There has to be a better (yes, yes, yes, lossy) compression algorithm than .jpeg that can be developed Open Source...
Good... (Score:4, Insightful)
If Microsoft added native JPEG2000 support to Internet Explorer, you can bet it would come into widespread usage extremely quickly.
Re:Honestly... (Score:5, Informative)
PNG is a lossless compression format, aiming at graphical images.
JPEG is a lossy compression format, aiming at photos.
It's like shortening by abbreviations vs. shortening by digesting. With abbreviations, you can restore the exact original, but your compression ratio is limited. With digesting you get much better compression while still getting the important facts, assuming the digester knows enough about the subject of the text he writes a digest on.
Re:Honestly... (Score:2)
Still, PNG is more of a direct threat to GIF (low end) and TIFF (high end) formats.
Nope (Score:5, Informative)
Patents do not require that you defend them.
Re:I thought you had to defend your patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
My solution to this particular problem: Do not allow companies to hold patents. All patents must be held by an individual, and cannot be transferred. If an individual wants to license exclusive usage to a company that's fine (the company can sponsor the holders ligigation if needed) but the company cannot hold it.
Re:I thought you had to defend your patents? (Score:3, Insightful)
My solution to this particular problem: Do not allow companies to hold patents. All patents must be held by an individual, and cannot be transferred. If an individual wants to license exclusive usage to a company that's fine (the company can sponsor the holders ligigation if needed) but the company cannot hold it.
That would be nice, except most research is not done by individuals. If a company sinks loads of money into R&D and ends up inventing a 100X better moustrap, who should get to hold the pate
Re:I thought you had to defend your patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Patents cover an idea. If it's patented, you can't do it. You can't black-box reverse engineer it. You can't get divine inspiration and get it out of the thin air. You just can't do something that's patented until the patent expires.
Copyrights cover a specific expression of an idea, like source code or prose or poetry. You can do the same thing, as long as you don't copy the original.
Trademarks cover a word/phrase associated with a company/brand. You're not allowed to make software and sell it under the name of Microsoft.
Trademarks are something you need to enforce. Patents and copyrights, on the other hand, can't be lost until they expire.
Re:I thought you had to defend your patents? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My Tactic (Score:2, Funny)
Re:All compression ? (Score:2, Informative)