Forgent Networks has today made good their 2002 claim to JPEG and their intention to pursue licensing revenue from companies who use it. They own United States patent 4,698,672 which covers the JPEG compression standard, this patent was created by Compression Labs who Forgent bought back in 1997. Over the last two years, Forgent’s has generated $90 million from licensing the patent to 30 different companies. The camera companies include Canon, Kodak, Fuji, Kyocera, HP, Panasonic, Ricoh, Toshiba, Concord and software suppliers Adobe, Macromedia, JASC.
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE), Agfa Corporation, Apple Computer Incorporated (Nasdaq:AAPL), Axis Communications Incorporated, Canon USA, Concord Camera Corporation (Nasdaq:LENS), Creative Labs Incorporated, Dell Incorporated (Nasdaq:DELL), Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK), Fuji Photo Film Co U.S.A, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Gateway Inc. (NYSE:GTW), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), JASC Software, JVC Americas Corporation, Kyocera Wireless Corporation, Macromedia Inc. (Nasdaq:MACR), Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, Oce’ North America Incorporated, Onkyo Corporation, PalmOne Inc. (Nasdaq:PLMO), Panasonic Communications Corporation of America, Panasonic Mobile Communications Development Corporation of USA, Ricoh Corporation, Riverdeep Incorporated (d.b.a. Broderbund), Savin Corporation, Thomson S.A. (NYSE:TMS), Toshiba Corporation and Xerox Corporation (NYSE:XRX).
If the plaintiff does not prevail, I hate to think what their legal costs are going to mean to the ultimate survival of their company. It’s not cheap to litigate against thirty-one defendants of this caliber.
I’m always amused by folks who think you can just walk into a US District Court and file a suit. That is not only not feasible, it would be just about the dumbest thing anyone could do.
In the first place, you have to make a showing that you have exhausted all other avenues. Secondly, negotiations can go on for years before they break down.
A different matter would be if they had not asserted a claim at all and had not tried to enforce their perceived rights before.
There’s nothing unusual about this. I observe literally hundreds of cases from the side lines per year, perhaps over one thousand. Two years to bring a lawsuit to fruition is nothing.
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