Twenty computer industry heavyweights have teamed up to sue Forgent Networks and General Instrument Corp, looking to invalidate Forgent's and General Instrument's patent for the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) digital image processing standard.
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell, Gateway, Matsushita, Apple, Toshiba, Agfa, PalmOne, Fujitsu Computer Products, Xerox, Canon, and Ricoh Corp were among the twenty companies filing a complaint that the Forgent-General Instrument bid to enforce the 1987 signal-coding patent cannot actually be enforced.
A court filing showed the plaintiffs charge Forgent and General Instrument, the latter a Motorola subsidiary, with trying unlawfully to "subvert the JPEG standard" and pry hundreds of millions from computer companies. The JPEG standard is used to compress and store digital images and is known to be compatible with large varieties of computers.
The new litigation countersues Forgent, whose Compression Labs subsidiary sued 31 companies for infringing the patent in April. Forgent said at the time that licensing the patent had meant about $90 million in royalties involving thirty companies in Asia, Europe, and the U.S.
The defendants in the original Forgent suit also included Apple, Adobe, Axis Communications, Concord Camera, Eastman Kodak, Onkyo, Macromedia, Panasonic, and Savin Corporation, among others. Forgent claimed the patent covered not just digital cameras but "many digital still devices" like personal digital assistants, cell phones, printers, scanners, and others.
Forgent "has the exclusive right to use, license, and enforce all the claims" under the patent, the company said when it announced the original litigation. "Forgent is committed to developing all of its assets and technologies to maximize shareholder value," said chief executive Richard Snyder at that filing. "We believe we will prevail in this litigation as the '672 Patent is valid, enforceable and infringed. It's unfortunate that despite the many opportunities these companies have had to license the patent, they have all declined to participate, leaving us no alternative but to litigate."
