Patent of JPEG will be reviewed

5th May 2006

Administration OF THE USA for patents and trade marks ownership (USPTO) made the decision to satisfy the requirement of fund PUBPAT about the revision of patent number 4,698,672. The patent, with which deals the discussion, was given out to firm Compression Labs on 6 October, 1987, and was describing the technology of the compression of data, which is adapted, in particular, in the widespread format JPEG. Patent at present is managed by company Forgent Networks, which purchased Compression Labs in 1997. Approximately one-and-a-half year ago Forgent Networks took legal actions against three ten well-known companies, after accusing them of the illegal application of technologies, protected by copyrights. To all responders it was proposed to pay off compensation and to acquire the appropriate licenses. Today the licensing of the procedure of compression by Compression Labs brought to the patentees more than 100 million US dollars. However, to pay out deductions agreed far from all, and, for example, Sun Microsystems and Google took against Forgent Networks counter actions. Furthermore, against Forgent Networks came out the noncommercial organization PUBPAT, which facilitates the disclosureof the protected technologies. Activists of PUBPAT required USPTO to reexamine patent after number 4,698,672, motivating this by the fact that Forgent Networks was using it exclusively for the purpose of profit. However, even after revision the patent of Forgent Networks can be acknowledged justified.