RED Sues Nikon For Infringing On Its Video Compression Patents (petapixel.com) 76
RED filed a lawsuit yesterday suing (PDF) Nikon for infringing on its video compression patents. PetaPixel reports: The lawsuit was filed in a southern California federal court today and asserts that the Japanese camera manufacturer and its United States subsidiaries have illegally infringed on seven patents that deal specifically with "a video camera that can be configured to highly compress video data in a visually lossless manner."
In the filing, RED notes a type of compression that it says it has patented and is in use by Nikon in the Z9: "The camera can be configured to transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data. The data can then be compressed and stored in this form. This allows a user to reconstruct the red and blue data to obtain the original raw data for a modified version of the original raw data that is visually lossless when demosaiced. Additionally, the data can be processed so the green image elements are demosaiced first, and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements."
This compression comes thanks to a partnership with intoPIX's TicoRAW which was announced last December. [...] The TicoRAW feature has been in the news for months, but RED was likely waiting for it to be implemented into a competitor's camera before filing a lawsuit. RED's lawsuit says Nikon's infringement on its patent was "willful" and claims Nikon would have known about RED's patents. [...] RED then cites multiple lawsuits it has filed against Kinefinity, Sony, and Nokia over the years. RED is seeking damages or royalties for the infringement as well as an injunction to ban Nikon from further infringing.
In the filing, RED notes a type of compression that it says it has patented and is in use by Nikon in the Z9: "The camera can be configured to transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data. The data can then be compressed and stored in this form. This allows a user to reconstruct the red and blue data to obtain the original raw data for a modified version of the original raw data that is visually lossless when demosaiced. Additionally, the data can be processed so the green image elements are demosaiced first, and then the red and blue elements are reconstructed based on values of the demosaiced green image elements."
This compression comes thanks to a partnership with intoPIX's TicoRAW which was announced last December. [...] The TicoRAW feature has been in the news for months, but RED was likely waiting for it to be implemented into a competitor's camera before filing a lawsuit. RED's lawsuit says Nikon's infringement on its patent was "willful" and claims Nikon would have known about RED's patents. [...] RED then cites multiple lawsuits it has filed against Kinefinity, Sony, and Nokia over the years. RED is seeking damages or royalties for the infringement as well as an injunction to ban Nikon from further infringing.
YCgCo (Score:3)
Did they patent the YCgCo colorspace or something?
Re: YCgCo (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: YCgCo (Score:5, Interesting)
That was a problem when I was working in lossless compression, it was almost impossible to implement any piece of totally bleedin' obvious technology without inadvertently stepping on someone's patent. The depressing thing was that there were some rather good compression schemes out there that were patented and near-impossible to license and so everyone had to walk around them, they served almost exclusively as roadblocks to getting anything done.
I've been out of that area for a long time so I don't know what RED's patents are like.
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I've worked across several different areas over the years, and after getting familiar with the area the thing I've noticed is that the bar for patents is "novel to someone vaguely technical but not remotely familiar with the state of the art or even common practice".
Like if you've never done image processing and learn about YCrCb or related colour spaces, you might think "oh that's really cool" (it is: it's a clever idea). But if you already knew about YUV then it's a blindingly obvious.
At the current rime
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I've worked across several different areas over the years, and after getting familiar with the area the thing I've noticed is that the bar for patents is "novel to someone vaguely technical but not remotely familiar with the state of the art or even common practice".
The legal term is "Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art". I worked in patent litigation for a while, and yes, the requirements to be "ordinary" were usually annoyingly low. It would pretty much always be just a bachelor's degree, and it would usually be somewhere between 2 and 5 years of experience in software development. A developer with that little experience isn't normally much more than a code monkey. An "ordinary" software engineer who's doing system design and architecture or algorithm development is
Re: YCgCo (Score:2)
Thought "obvious" constituted grounds for revocation of a patent. If so, we could see some interesting times. If not, everyone using LZW TIFFs will be dead.
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Re: YCgCo (Score:2)
Re: YCgCo (Score:5, Interesting)
I just don't know where the line should be
Software algorithms should not be patentable.
This is already the case in many countries.
Software patents inhibit progress far more than they encourage innovation. They are trolled far more than hardware patents.
Software patents [wikipedia.org]
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RED cameras are used in the professional cinematography market. As early as 2007 they were offering 4K @ 60 fps cameras. They have been litigious in protecting their IP but they do make products that the movie studio use.
That doesn't prevent them from being patent trolls. I've always rejected the notion that patent trolling is limited to non-practicing entities. They're the worst, by far, because they contribute nothing to the state of the art at all, but at least in my mind, big companies who file overly broad patents on things that should be obvious can still be patent trolls if they use those patents offensively, rather than defensively, to prevent competition.
Whether RED is doing that in this case or not remains to be
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All the action-movies are shot using RED cameras because they don't show the blood :)
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Re: RED (Score:3)
They also made a really sh*tty cell phone and killed it almost immediately after it's much delayed, overhyped, and overpromised release.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://arstechnica.com/gadget... [arstechnica.com]
Re: YCgCo (Score:2)
Seriously? Are you kidding me with that question?
No (Score:1)
Not all of us are movienerdfreaks, you know.
It's not unreasonable to expect the slashdot readership to know about Nikon, since they're very well known as manufacturers of still cameras for both professionals and "consumers" and have been for a very long time, but these "RED" guys? Knowing about them without actually working with the gear is still tech-hipster territory.
In any case, writing news starts with the high points (Alice sues Bob) then fills in the details (the case is about patents and the patent
Re: No (Score:4, Informative)
If a geek, not just a movievideonerdgeek, was going to geek out over a video camera, It would be a RED. Or a FLIR, I suppose.
FLIR is not an everyday product for most of us, but I would expect most tech enthusiasts to be familiar with them. Granted, they have been around longer.
Re: No (Score:2)
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They've been making cutting edge digital video cameras for years
You mean overpricing off the shelf stuff for years?
https://www.cined.com/whats-in... [cined.com]
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Or a Phantom, because super slow-mo is interesting technology.
Re: No (Score:2)
I avoid mfg news. The BBC building its own UHDTV cameras for the Olympics, from scratch, and laying down the fibre for it... THAT was news, IMHO.
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who's been paying attention for the past 17 years
Well there's your problem. Most of the /. crowd is still living in the 90's with very stale knowledge of tech.
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Of course I don't expect everyone to know everything. I wouldn't have been caustic if he hadn't immediately jumped into patent troll speculation without bothering to do basic fact-checking or googling.
Re: No (Score:2)
I had never heard of RED and the thought of them being a patent troll also crossed my mind.
Re: No (Score:2)
Do you also not have access to Google? Or am address bar?
Red.com
Asking who someone is instead of googling it is the height of annoying entitled internet user.
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Also - who are RED?
Looks like a patent troll.
Is everyone you don't know about automatically a patent troll? Have you considered instead googling a company rather than just spreading bullshit based on your own assumptions?
Not only are they a real company with real products and a complete lineup of professional camera equipment, they have been covered multiple times on Slashdot, largely to do with their attempt of producing a phone.
Re: YCgCo (Score:2)
Microsoft patent troll. Being real means nothing.
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Cursory reading :
They demosaic green only, and use that as a predictor for the RAW Bayer pattern.
Here we go again. (Score:1)
Standard Disclaimer: IANAL. And know nothing of the case. This is insane drivel posted by a random person on the internet. Please seek proper legal counsel before making any decisions.
Re:Here we go again. (Score:5, Interesting)
This would seem to implicate anything that uses compression that can also take pictures.
A quick scan of their patent suggests that they are doing some manipulation of the red and blue pixel values relative to the green to make compression more efficient. Absent any such inter color value manipulation, other compression algorithms are probably non infringing.
OTOH, if similar schemes exist as prior art to the RED patent, it may be a case of using the same color weights in an algorithm. Which means Nikon could use different weights and be OK. But then introduce aberrations in color schemes should the editing s/w use the wrong numbers.
This is why (Score:3)
We shouldn't have patents. And this is definitely an improper use, a patient should protect IP, not be a tool for litigation for you to increase revenue.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Patents are okay, but there should be some limitations:
1. Patents should not be transferrable. This could stop patent trolls.
2. Patent terms should be shorter. The short product cycle of the modern market makes long terms unnecessary.
3. Patents should not be concurrent with copyright. If you patent something, you should not be able to copyright it, and vice versa.
Re: This is why (Score:4, Insightful)
Patents are not concurrent with copyright.
They cover different things.
Re: This is why (Score:2)
Iâ(TM)d argue hardware patents are okay, but software patents need to be eliminated or severely limited in term.
The argument here is that hardware is often expensive to R&D, while software usually has many people developing similar things in parallel. The intent of a patent is to encourage innovation and discourage secrets, while giving a temporary monopoly, which I believe is around 20 years. 20 years in software is an eternity, and software patents usually stifle innovation and enrich lawyers for
Re: This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with this philosophically. Turns out it's kind of a tricky, blurry line though. Where does software end and hardware begin?
Let's say I build a product with most of the logic implemented inside of an FPGA. Does that count as hardware or software? It's source-code (probably Verilog), it has a compiler, and it produces a binary blob that can be updated on-target. So a lot of folks would say "that's software".
But then I can take the exact same source-code, and compile it to make an ASIC mask. Now I've got a custom chip, so a lot of folks would say "that's hardware".
But if it's the exact same source-code in both places, how can one be patentable and another not? The IP isn't different, nor is the amount of novel design work.
And then from there, things start to get even murkier. What if my FPGA design includes a little micro-sequencer that runs custom opcodes? What if it includes a custom CPU that I designed myself? What if it includes an ARM microcontroller?
I don't have answers to any of the above, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic.
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What if I create a 3D model and render it as art? The source code and the resulting art are both copyrightable. But what if I manufacture it and it is the key component in the function of a new kind of latch? Now it is patentable. And what if I use it to decorate a table? Now it is a design patent. This is okay. There are things protected by both in different forms. Technical drawings can be copyrighted separately from the patents protecting the designs. There's even a specific section in law for a
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In your case I’d suspect exposing the design before going through the patent process could limit you. Unless of course the exposed design did not expose the secret.
I was actually trying to find a good source that would indicate at which point exposure of a design could limit it patentability. I am just not finding the right search terms. If anyone can help it would be appreciated. EU or US patent law equivalents would be good too.
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imagine a guy who invents and patents something but doesn't have the dosh to bring it to market.
"Independent inventors" are usually parasites who produce little value. What happens 99% of the time is another company independently makes the same innovation without even being aware of the original patent. Then after they build and market it, they get sued by someone who created no value and contributed nothing.
Re: This is why (Score:2)
If it's software, copyright is adequate. No need for software patents, nobody should patent pure mathematics.
Re:This is why (Score:5, Informative)
At least potentially, on the surface this doesn't look to be improper use. That isn't to say they're correct, only that it seems their claim has reason behind it. RED is a company that developed the compression algorithm for a product that they produce. That is exactly in the wheelhouse of what patents are currently supposed to protect. As to their use as a tool for litigation to increase revenue, they're an actual competitor on the market. They quite possibly chose to do it this way for a legitimate reason, or to put a monetary cost to scare off others from trying it.
Re:This is why (Score:4, Interesting)
What's improper is that instead of filing against the tiny company that developed its own implementation, they waited for someone with deep pockets to license it and then sue that company for infringement instead.
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The tiny company is producing no products and thus not infringing on anything. It's not a case of deep pockets, it's a case of no standing.
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The "product" is TicoRAW and was already being marketed for sale, even if primarily to hardware OEMs. The fact that it wasn't a physical product doesn't make it non-infringing.
This is like saying Microsoft Office can't infringe a patent on its own and then waiting for Best Buy to sell a million copies and then going after Best Buy.
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Filing against small companies that can't afford to defend themselves is what patent trolls do. Establish a "precedent" with some small fish, and use that to escalate to bigger players.
Hmm... (Score:3)
Something tells me that a California company founded in 2005 somehow has not bested the one founded 125 years ago and which employs some of the best optical engineers in Japan. I'm calling bullshit.
Re: Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Why has the 125 year old company not managed to produce video cameras used in the largest film productions around the world?
They all seem to use RED cameras, not Nikon
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Might be something to do with fucked up patent law and how RED is really good at suing people.
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Or maybe it has nothing to do with RED at all since RED isn't good at suing people and most digital cinema has been working fine without any of RED's patented compression in the past.
Re: Hmm... (Score:2)
Niche market.
Also, mathematics (and thus computer software) cannot be patented over any continent that matters. The US is increasingly irrelevant because you can.
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Re: Hmm... (Score:2)
Because the BBC didn't sell their cameras, which came out earlier and were better.
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Because the BBC didn't sell their cameras, which came out earlier and were better.
Citation needed
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Uh, it doesn't work that way . . . old companies often drop the ball in that regard. IIRC, Kodak invented digital photography.
Interesting fact - RED has specific patents which spell out how the compression is done. If Nikon's (not nearly as old) compression algorithm looks enough like RED's, I'd say they've got a problem.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
> RED has specific patents which spell out how the compression is done
lol no they dont, they implement JPEG2000 verbatim in their cameras. Afair their first cameras even reused pre existing jpeg2000 codec chips, just rebranded and obfuscated.
What RED has patented is "any video camera at all using all available sensor technologies possible with any lossless compression" - thats an actual patent Apple licenses. They have funny patents like
7,830,967 2k+ resolution video camera recording in sRGB or rec709 color space. Main claim
"an image processing system configured to perform a pre-emphasis function on the digital raw image data, to compress the digital raw image data after performing the pre-emphasis function such that the digital raw image data remains substantially visually lossless upon decompression, and to store the compressed digital raw image data in the memory device at a rate of at least about 23 frames per second, wherein the pre-emphasis function comprises a curve defined by the function y=(x+c)^g, where 0.01 g1 and c is an offset."
is just rec709 gamma correction math
8,174,560 2k+ resolution camera that records at a 6:1 or more compression ratio.
Dont worry, they also have one for lossy compression US9245314B2 describing any camera using any sensor and any compression.
Re: Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
I work for a Japanese company and if I had to sum up Japanese companies in 1 word it would be conservative. 2 words would be risk adverse. 3 would be quality over innovation.
We literally turn people down for business because we don't want to make that many machines due to all of the quality checks. We moved some production to Vietnam, and every (500kg) machine is sent to Japan after production and fully tested before they will send it to the US. Fuck yeah a company without that baggage can do better.
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Something tells me that a California company founded in 2005 somehow has not bested the one founded 125 years ago and which employs some of the best optical engineers in Japan. I'm calling bullshit.
Huh? What has optical engineering got to do with anything? The entire article is about software compression, something Nikon have historically not been very good at, not compared to actual tech companies, and not compared to their peers like Canon and Olympus. And for all you "best optical engineers in Japan" strawmen it's worth noting that Nikon has no presence at all in digital cinema which is RED's market.
Re: Hmm... (Score:1)
The compression is apparently a standard JPEG2000 algorithm, which you could download off the net as unencumbered open source long before RED patented their invention.
Prior art is valid reason to call this a patent troll.
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The patents in the case do not appear to deal with wavelet-based image compression at all, but instead with the processing of green data within the RAW mosaic.
Re: Hmm... (Score:1)
They didn't. It's an open algorithm that existed prior to RED in open source.
Legal but not moral (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yup, patent trolls. Sue them into the fucking ground, I say.
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RED, a patent troll? They make the cameras that have filmed most digital movies.
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You are correct that RED is not a non-practicing entity (NPE). However, it exhibiting a behavior typical of NPEs, particularly ownership and assertion of a harmfully broad, questionably non-obvious patent.
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Any time someone brings up the 'rounded corners' you know you are dealing with someone who knows nothing at all about patents. That was a DESIGN patent. Design patents only cover how something looks, and only covers features that are not required for the use of the thing. And 'rounded corners' was never a patent, the patent covered how the entire original iPhone looked. That included rounded corners, button placement, etc. And since even the iPhone no longer looks like that it is pretty hard to argue tha
Re: Legal but not moral (Score:1)
Not legal.
JPEG2000 does not belong to them, and existed before. That's their algorithm. Prior art means no patent.
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JPEG 2000 Part 1 is widely believed to be free of any patented technology (and certainly is by now in 2022).
However the patents at issue in this case are 7,830,967 âoeVideo Camera" which includes ways to "transform blue and red image data in a manner that enhances the compressibility of the data", 9,521,384 âoeGreen Average Subtraction in Image Data", 9,716,866 âoeGreen Image Data Processing", 10,582,168 âoeGreen Image Data Processing".
None of these patents appear to deal with wavelet-b