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Topic: 1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today (Read 30953 times) previous topic - next topic
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1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #25 –
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
As far as I know, Lucent holds several patents for technology developed before the cooperation with Fraunhofer. While Microsoft paid royalties to Thomson, it also has to pay fees for the couple of patents owned by Lucent.


Not only MS, but EVERY other product including the MP3 technology would and should be affected aswell. iTunes, Winamp and so on and so on.

Lucent is only going after MS because they are the biggest and the one's with the most cash.
myspace.com/borgei - last.fm/user/borgei

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #26 –
rjamorim, do you have a problem with Vorbis? You have a go at it every time you can. You even took the trouble to hijack this thread.

Triza

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #27 –
Quote from: Triza on
rjamorim, do you have a problem with Vorbis?


Funny, a Musepack fanboy would say I have a problem with MPC. And I know some AAC fanboys that would say I have a problem with AAC. Format fanboys can't handle facts, so they try to write my posts off as some unfathomable prejudice from my part.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #28 –
Quote
This is just bullshit, to be honest. One suddenly needs to pay royaltee fees to several licensing corporations now? Yea that makes sense, especially when they start backdating stuff like this...

The world of rotten business practices.


Rotten business practices is a nice way of saying it . It kind of reminds me of Creative
budding I.T professional

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #29 –
I'm no Microsoft fan, however this lawsuit is a perfect example of why companies such as Microsoft develop their own proprietary formats in this case being WMA and push them like there's no tomorrow.

The lawsuit is enough of a wakeup call to not even include an mp3 encoder in WMP and instead have it capable of using an external .exe encoder (LAME), or .dll encoder (LAME) just like CDex and EAC do (not to mention several dozens or hundreds of other CD ripping apps).

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #30 –
Speaking of Lame, will this ruling effect encoders in any way? Or just media players?

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #31 –
Quote from: Viamp on
Speaking of Lame, will this ruling effect encoders in any way? Or just media players?


Details are still quite hazy. For starters, we don't know if their patent applies to the decoding part or only the encoding part.

I find it unlikely that they would go after the lame developers - they are just a bunch of guys from all over the world working on a non-commercializable encoder in their free time. I would expect them to go after the big MP3 vendors: AOL (Winamp), Apple (iTunes), hardware makers, etc.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #32 –
I thought the "problematic" patents were "US4516258: Bit allocation generator for adaptive transform coder" and "US4184049: Transform speech signal coding with pitch controlled adaptive quantizing" from 1982 and 1978.

Edit: Noticed that they are arguing about 15 patents and not only 2.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #33 –
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
I thought the "problematic" patents were "US4516258: Bit allocation generator for adaptive transform coder" and "US4184049: Transform speech signal coding with pitch controlled adaptive quantizing" from 1982 and 1978.


Indeed. Have you read them to know where they apply?

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #34 –
Quote from: bidz on
Lucent is only going after MS because they are the biggest and the one's with the most cash.


It's as bad as the Eolas EMBED tag patent causing vast amounts of faffage and unguessable but massive wastes of everyone's time and money putting JavaScript into pages to avoid having to "activate" plugins.

Eolas haven't sued anyone but MS yet but they'll probably go after everyone else for historical infringement when the MS case finally ends.

Quote from: Andavari on
I'm no Microsoft fan, however this lawsuit is a perfect example of why companies such as Microsoft develop their own proprietary formats in this case being WMA and push them like there's no tomorrow.


And the sad truth of the matter is that the proprietary formats almost certainly infringe on the alleged patents as well however since you can't find out how they work in any detail without MS wanting you to and you signing an enormous NDA it's more difficult for a third party to build a case.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #35 –
Quote from: chelgrian on
It's as bad as the Eolas EMBED tag patent causing vast amounts of faffage and unguessable but massive wastes of everyone's time and money putting JavaScript into pages to avoid having to "activate" plugins.

Eolas haven't sued anyone but MS yet but they'll probably go after everyone else for historical infringement when the MS case finally ends.


Indeed, the patent system, as it is set up today, is absurdly inefficient and dangerous.

Unfortunately, the solution proposed by assorted types of zealots - completely banishing the patent system - is, IMO, the worst solution of all.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #36 –
Here is a FAQ about this case posted today by News.com, the people who brought the story I used to start this thread. I will also post this FAQ link at the first post of the thread, but wanted it here for people who don't re-read from the first post again and already are at this point:

http://news.com.com/FAQ+Behind+Microsofts+...l?tag=nefd.lede

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #37 –
Quote from: rjamorim on
Quote from: chelgrian on
It's as bad as the Eolas EMBED tag patent causing vast amounts of faffage and unguessable but massive wastes of everyone's time and money putting JavaScript into pages to avoid having to "activate" plugins.

Eolas haven't sued anyone but MS yet but they'll probably go after everyone else for historical infringement when the MS case finally ends.


Indeed, the patent system, as it is set up today, is absurdly inefficient and dangerous.

Unfortunately, the solution proposed by assorted types of zealots - completely banishing the patent system - is, IMO, the worst solution of all.


Making it similar to the trademark system would solve a lot of issues.

You either defend your patent and warn infringers as soon as you learn of them, or you STFU.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #38 –
This is grave news for license-pooled public standards and companies involved...

One can only hope this issue would shed some light onto the need for patent reform, especially more efficient protections against submarine patents.

I read the FAQ, but it did not answer most of my questions. For reference, is there a list of patents (15?) involved in this dispute?
UED77
wavpack 4.50 -hx3; lame 3.97 -V4 --vbr-new

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #39 –
The plot thickens. Appears Microsoft hired away the guy who did the 2 patents in question at Bell Labs. Maybe this is a case of retaliation primarily aimed at Microsoft?

And now this article mentions these 2 patents were for AAC and not MP3. Help me understand this article please...

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ex-b...o&dist=yhoo

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #40 –
also, how serious is this threat, considering it's just a jury ruling, rather than something coming from someone serious/exact/expert-/legalistically informed?
it seems as if the factual foundation on which this is based is a bit shaky if they only felt secure to bring it before a jury

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #41 –
Quote from: goodnews on
The plot thickens. Appears Microsoft hired away the guy who did the 2 patents in question at Bell Labs.


Oh, yes they did 

I must STFU now.


Anyway, I'd guess these patents were actually related to PAC/ePAC. AAC only officially started being developed by MPEG several years later (although it did use algorithms developed by Bell labs for PAC).

For anyone curious about PAC/ePAC:
http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/audiolib.html
http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/audioveda.html


Evil edit: the Lucent lawyers should include this post in their evidence:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=313480

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #42 –
Quote from: goodnews on
The plot thickens. Appears Microsoft hired away the guy who did the 2 patents in question at Bell Labs.



This web site would appear to completely refute that idea.

home.comcast.net/~retired_old_jj

That site has been around for a while, I don't think it's been changed in aeons.

You will notice that before jj came to Microsoft he was employed by AT&T, not Lucent.
-----
J. D. (jj) Johnston

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #43 –
Some interesting questions arise out of this:

Is unlicensed AT&T intellectual property actually being utilized in Microsoft Windows?

If yes, then did Microsoft license in good faith MP3 technology from Fraunhofer without knowlingly impinging on AT&T's IP?

If yes, then does not knowing provide any additional protections and/or remedies?

Or did Microsoft know exactly what it was doing and considered a $16 million gamble would be a cheaper shield than what AT&T would have wanted?

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #44 –
Quote from: benski on
If the patent in question was "backdated" to 1988, didn't it expire in 2005?  The "20 years from filing" went into effect sometime in 1995.  Prior to that it was "17 years from grant".


The back-dating just changes the patent's priority date.  If part of the patent has a priority going back to 1988, the patent could actually have been filed later, but it has a history going back to 1988.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #45 –
Quote from: rjamorim on
Quote from: Triza on
rjamorim, do you have a problem with Vorbis?


Funny, a Musepack fanboy would say I have a problem with MPC. And I know some AAC fanboys that would say I have a problem with AAC. Format fanboys can't handle facts, so they try to write my posts off as some unfathomable prejudice from my part.


I am not a fanboy, mate, no matter how much you wish to allude that, but this is not the 1st time you lash out against Vorbis without any Vorbis fanboy provoking you.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #46 –
So what? After all, this might be a problem for Vorbis if they use patented technology although I doubt that Lucent is going to go after non-profit organizations. Being patent-free is one (if not the main) of Vorbis advertised features.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #47 –
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
So what? After all, this might be a problem for Vorbis if they use patented technology although I doubt that Lucent is going to go after non-profit organizations. Being patent-free is one (if not the main) of Vorbis advertised features.


Shouldnt all of the MP3 patents be expired or expiring soon anyway. This should make both vorbis and mpc in the clear either way.

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #48 –
Quote from: Triza on
I am not a fanboy, mate, no matter how much you wish to allude that, but this is not the 1st time you lash out against Vorbis without any Vorbis fanboy provoking you.


And why should I lash out against a format only when fanboys provoke me? I lash out at formats when formats deserve to be lashed out at. No format is sacred to me.

Quote
Shouldnt all of the MP3 patents be expired or expiring soon anyway. This should make both vorbis and mpc in the clear either way.


I wondered about that too. I think it would be an interesting research: go to uspto.gov and check the dates each of the relevant patents were granted. If only I wasn't so lazy...

1.5 Billion dollar audio patent judgment against Microsoft today

Reply #49 –
Well, even if they expired now, AFAIK, they can still go after MS for using the patented technology at the time when the patents were still applicable. After all, Windows supports MP3 since when - Windows 98 at least.