|
|
Sony sued over Blu-ray patent
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 1st September 2008
Did Sony take several shortcuts while developing Blu-ray, or is Orinda just another patent troll?
BetaNews reports that an intellectual property company – that is, a company which buys the patents from other firms with the avowed intention of suing people with big pockets – called Orinda IP USA is accusing Sony of infringing its patent on “Apparatus and method for recording/reproducing optical information and optical disk-shaped recording medium.” If you thought that the terms of the patent sounded vague, you'd be right.
The patent dates back to 1993 – so it's hardly cutting-edge technology – and was originally filed by Hyundai Electronics Industries. Having purchased the patent, Orinda is looking to make a fat profit: stating that any and all Blu-ray devices fall under the terms of the patent, the company is asking for an injunction against Sony along with an agreement to receive royalties, triple damages, backdated interest, and the full payment of legal fees. Plus the moon on a stick, one assumes.
This isn't the first time Sony has been accused of taking shortcuts while developing Blu-ray, either: back in 2007 the company was sued by Target Technologies over a corrosion-preventing layer in Blu-ray discs that the company claimed Sony had appropriated.
Filed on the 20th of August in East Texas – a court well beloved of patent hoarders – this latest case will be presided over by Judge T. John Ward, a man well known for siding with patent holders in these disputes. Whether this spells trouble for Sony remains to be seen.
Do you see yet another patent troll going after the deepest pockets it can, or is there something to Orinda's claims after all? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Related
Comments (25)
Compare over 250 mobile phones &
52,000 deals!
Compare over 100 broadband & mobile broadband deals online!
- Site Links:
- About
- Email Editor
- Newsletter
- Privacy
- RSS
- Score Guide
- Our Other Websites:
- Auto Express
- Channel Pro
- Computer Buyer
- Computer Shopper
- Den of Geek
All content © bit-tech.net 2000-2009
© Copyright Dennis Publishing Limited licensed by Felden
Anyone want to bet Orinda get buried in paper for the next milenia?
1993 is a few years after this, therefore surely the "prior art" argument works for this "patent" thus rendering it invalid?
Patent trolls should be ordered to make good on their IP within a year of purchasing the patent before they're permitted to bring anything to court. If they bring something to court without any intentions on licensing or using the technology themselves, they should be forced to pay the defendents the same amount they're suing for!
Go to hell Orinda
no sueing over DVD's, CD's UMD's Laser Disc's, HD-DVD's? of course not. they have to wait till there is a large enough company who pretty much owns the current market on the tech and has a good enough pocket of cash to take.
hey, why don't we devise a patent for devices sending electrical impulses through wires to other devices?
F*** Orinda sideways. I hope they lose and get counter sued into oblivion for wasting the courts time and being a company of douches.
http://v3.espacenet.com/jpeg?PN=US5438560
So, for each technical questions they raise, lawyers raise ten legal issues.
This is holding science back!
Intellectual property company... this is outrageous!
According to the wikipedia article on Compact Discs, Recordable CDs have been available since 1990 (as I mentioned earlier), so the error checking before burning has been around that long as well, as I'd find it remarkable if such error checking wasn't included for 3 years after recordable CDs were marketed... especially given that error checking/data redundancy has been present right from conception of CDs...
What's confusing is that the title of the patent has nothing to do with error correction, so that's a rather ambiguous patent in the first place. That's like patenting a "cyclindrical aqueous based beverage container" (i.e. a mug) and then specifying that the patent only covers the mug handle!
Also, that flow chart could be applied to hard disk based media...
Sony originally invented the recordable CD and music CD, so they can claim that patent infringes upon their previous research.
(the reason a recordable CD is the size it is is because the head of Sony BMG at the time loved symphonies and wanted all of beethoven's 5th on a single disc in uncompressed format.)
this isn't going to hold up.
also if they didn't want it thrown out on stupidity they'd have to sue every optical disc mfg. from 1993 until now, or it gets thrown out as selective application.
As far as the patent reads it is a method not only for error checking but also how to allow the drive to understand where the data is if there is a bad sector and it needs to be placed somewhere else on the disk. Also the fairly standard affair of redundant information on an optical disk, I am still not sure how much of this is really important to sony's BRdisks or how similar the process is but I kinda doubt it is all that similar.
By the way google has a wonderful patent search function now.
This is the patent in question.
Happy Searching:D
In March 1979, one week after the press conference in which the CD player had been shown to the world, a large Philips delegation set off for Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Industry and Technology (MITI) had decided to convene a conference in which the industry would come together and decide upon a standard for the audio disc. In order to increase the opportunities for the Philips system, it seemed a good idea to collaborate with a Japanese partner. That is why a tight schedule of demonstrations was planned at all leading Japanese electronics companies.
The development of the CD took a decisive turn just before the return journey. The demonstrations in Japan had gone extremely well. As Joop van Tilburg, head of the audio division, was packing his suitcases, he received a telephone call from the president of Sony, Akio Morita. The offer of joint further development was accepted. In the months that followed, Philips and Sony engineers flew backwards and forwards in turn to see each other. Their aim was to agree upon a joint standard for the CD. Both companies would then be able to develop their own products in accordance with this standard.
1. They sue for something that has been around for decades in terms of electronic devices.
2. They only sue one company that would be big enough to pay big money.
3. There is "previous art" of the aforementioned technology, so the claim should be /dev/null.
4. This lawsuit is so utterly ridiculus that it should result in insta-fail.
Yes, it's a valid patent, but, as it's so widely produced and being used by many, doesn't it become kinda "public" or something in that manner i.e. you cannot sue against it.