JPEG Patent Rejected

The USPTO has rejected the broadest claims of the JPEG image format patent held by Forgent Networks.

It's nice to see the Patent Office doing the right thing, but it's too bad that more than $100 million dollars that Forgent has extorted from industry will never be returned to its rightful owners. Forgent gets to keep that money, regardless of how the PTO rules. For nearly 19 years, this patent has stood without challenge. Now, just over a year before it was to expire, the PTO declares that it is bogus.

So, how would you feel if you had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Forgent because they threatened you with a lawsuit that, regardless of outcome, would have cost you millions (average cost of defending oneself in a patent infringement suit stands today at roughly $10 million)? How would you feel knowing that our patent system stood idlely by, while Forgent played this extortion game against hundreds of companies?

And most importantly, how do you feel knowing that this is exactly the kind of behavior that our current patent system encourages, today?

Previously:

• Who Owns Your Images?