Kodak Sues HTC and Apple 177
alphadogg writes "Here we go again with mobile industry patent lawsuits: 'Struggling Eastman Kodak is alleging that Apple's and HTC's smartphones and tablets infringe on its digital imaging technology, and has filed a complaint and lawsuits with the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. The complaint to the ITC claims that some of Apple's iPhones, iPads, and iPods, and HTC's smartphones and tablets, infringe Kodak patents related to technology for transmitting images. Kodak also alleges that HTC's smartphones infringe on a patent related to a method for previewing images, which is already the subject of pending actions against Apple.'"
Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this gives us a clue about Kodakâ(TM)s future plans to be solvent: Patent Troll? They have already sued Apple and RIM recently...
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Insightful)
businessweek article doesn't really detail the patents in question. 'previewing an image'. was 'on a camera' the re-patent everything catchphrase that only Kodak thought of? after generating the image, it's a computer file. it's on a really poor computer. the computer displays the image on a screen, as has been done for decades. transmission of images? again, after generation, its a file. sending a file via some already established protocol shouldn't be patentable for some types of files.
of course, I'm assuming it's all software, not hardware. If anyone knows the patents in question, it would be interesting to see the claims.
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Interesting)
the camera screens have smaller resolutions than the photo so you will need an algorithm to downgrade the image, that part is patentable. icloud does something similar where the photo stream images are lesser resolutions than the original. so i guess apple could have ripped them off if they used the same algorithm
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or would be, if downscaling algorithms hadn't been known for decades. Of course, if you write "downscaling...on a mobile device", that's a new patent. Then you can write dependent claims like
"method of claim X, where the downscaling is nearest-neighbor interpolation"
"method of claim X, where the downscaling is bilinear interpolation"
"method of claim X, where different downscaling methods are used on the luma and chroma components"
(stop me if you've heard all this before)
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1920*1080 which is the highest consumer resolution available is around 2MP
2560*1600 which is the highest resolution available for individual displays in the market is around 4MP
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Informative)
1920*1080 which is the highest consumer resolution available is around 2MP
Apple's Thunderbolt Display [apple.com] (and the 27" Cinema Display before it) is 2560x1440.
Dell's 27" U2711 [dell.com] has the same resolution (I think they may be using the same panel), and the 30" U3011 [dell.com] is 2560x1600.
2560*1600 which is the highest resolution available for individual displays in the market is around 4MP
The Eizo RadiForce LS560W [eizo.com] is 3840x2160. The RX840 [eizo.com] is 4096x2160. And although most people would not want a monochrome monitor, you can get them all the way to at least 4096x2560, like the GX1030 [eizo.com]. And that is just sticking to Eizo monitors, I didn't check other high end brands.
I get your point, but your numbers are quite off
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The others I didnt know about, but 20k EUR is a LOT for a monitor
Resizing an image is not patentable (Score:2)
the camera screens have smaller resolutions than the photo so you will need an algorithm to downgrade the image, that part is patentable. icloud does something similar where the photo stream images are lesser resolutions than the original. so i guess apple could have ripped them off if they used the same algorithm
You can't patent the general concept of resizing and image, you could potentially patent a particular algorithm to do this, that is non trivial and not well known (like compression algorithms can be patented).
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Perhaps this gives us a clue about Kodakâ(TM)s future plans to be solvent...
I see it more like an attempt to capitalize their patents and earn a few extra bucks before the ship sinks.
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Or push up the perceived value of their assets for a potential buyer.
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing that surprises me, a bit, about Kodak's fall from grace is that being a film titan, at their prime, involved substantial chemical manufacturing capacity and expertise. Was that non-transferrable to some other area of chemical production, or did they somehow get rid of their boring-but-solvent departments in some strange reorganization scheme? Same question would go for any departments involved in optics, industrial imaging, etc.
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..snipped... The thing that surprises me, a bit, about Kodak's fall from grace is that being a film titan, at their prime, involved substantial chemical manufacturing capacity and expertise. Was that non-transferrable to some other area of chemical production, or did they somehow get rid of their boring-but-solvent departments in some strange reorganization scheme? Same question would go for any departments involved in optics, industrial imaging, etc.
Yes, they sold off most of their sustainable viable technologies. See Eastman Chemicals for example.
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Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:5, Informative)
If I recall correctly it had more to do with some arbitrary and insane insistence on 'Consumer Imaging' being the business focus, which is why you got cheap consumer cameras (easy share), printer docs (with attempts to cash in on printer paper consumables), but little pro-sumer stuff, and the occasional/rare super high-end imagers/gear (like those used in telescopes, etc).
This is also why they sold off/spun off their profitable medical imaging groups, chemicals group, and they've tried to get rid of their profitable Document Imaging group (high-end, high-speed document scanners) several times. They've been constantly trying to push themselves into the most difficult and price-competitive market possible, cheapo consumer cameras. I think the ultimate goal was to maintain some kind of grasp of the photo printing business as their cash cow with consumable manufacturing/selling. To be fair, they still do a good job printing pictures, but people don't really want/need to do that anymore with rare exceptions. And people that still do prints do it in-house or have local labs that do the work.
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This is also why they sold off/spun off their profitable.... They've been constantly trying to push themselves into the most difficult and price-competitive market possible, cheapo consumer cameras.
This reminds of HP, which spun off their "boring" test and measurement division so they could concentrate on cheapo consumer computers.
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Was that non-transferrable to some other area of chemical production, or did they somehow get rid of their boring-but-solvent departments in some strange reorganization scheme?
You might say that their solvent business... wasn't! Hahahaha aaahahaha aha ha ha ha. Eh? Srsly, they did divest the profitable holdings, how do you think they have lasted this long given that film use basically bottomed out a decade ago? The only thing left is the name on the door and that's what this move is about. Someone (Apple, Sony, Canon, anybody) needs to do "the right thing" and buy up Kodak and put the name to good use, and spare them from this trolling.
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Well, they've certainly lost the competitive edge they had in the 90s...
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going the way of SCO (and look where that ended up) - as already stated. Seems the accountants now running the place have only one place left to try and find some income. Sad.
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Well, they're currently offering their patent portfolio for sale, so I'm guessing it's a general sales tactic.
Of course, it also means a REAL patent troll may come about and pick it up. Or perhaps Apple may buy the portfolio and extract money from everyone. Or Google. Or Microsoft.
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There is a common misconception here at Slashdot.. (Score:3)
Yeah those aren't obvious *eye roll*
There is a common misconception here at Slashdot that doing something "obvious" makes the patent frivolous.
The issue usually *IS NOT* what end result is, but *HOW* the patented process does it.
There are all sorts of incredibly novel and innovative and not-so-obvious ways to do very obvious things.
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"There are all sorts of incredibly novel and innovative and not-so-obvious ways to do very obvious things."
And 99% of those are kludged, bloated, and dog-slow.
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Not quite true. There were lots of early leaders using CCD devices to produce still images; some of them went to tape, others to primitive onboard storage. Sony even used a floppy disk drive at one point.
There may be a lot of prior art to some of the claims that invalidate them, but Kodak did do a lot of pioneering research in the area. The usual process is to have the defendents claim that the patents aren't legal, and otherwise them invalidated. Barring that, they'll try to get the complaint squashed on o
Re:Kodak's Future... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Then the first one can one-up the copy-cats again. In fact, in this way, patents are anticompetitive and hinder the proper fu
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Then the first one can one-up the copy-cats again.
So they spend a lot of money developing something to give them a very brief advantage- which almost certainly won't recover the cost of the investment- before the other company copies *that* again? Lather, rinse, repeat.
I'm not saying that the patent systems in various countries don't have problems, or that all patents should be allowed, or that all patents should last as long as they're allowed to be just now. However, to dismiss the entire concept in principle, is IMHO wrong.
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Anyone who sues over any obvious patent is a patent troll. So yes, Kodak is a patent troll. But so is Apple and most of these other big tech companies, so the trolls are suing each other.
Death Rattle (Score:2, Insightful)
Yesterday on the news it was about Kodak going bankrupt, now they are suing other company's as a last ditch effort. This is a death rattle, nothing more.
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Death rattle, but could be an annoying one. Three scenarios:
1) Last ditch effort to survive.
2) Start lawsuits, adds potential value due to potential win/settlement.
3) They are already going down, already going bankrupt, maybe they can drag down some of those who helped put them in this spot in the process.
Re:Death Rattle (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry, but only Kodak put Kodak into this spot ... they've staunchly refused/failed to move forward, have rested on their laurels while the industry changed around them ... and to be honest, they've made abysmally low quality consumer stuff for years.
My wife's parents now have their second Kodak camera ... truthfully, it's a POS, but they don't use it much and is simple for them to use. We bought a photo printer that died in a few weeks. The one we returned it for died a few weeks after that. Utter garbage.
I have no sympathy for Kodak. I mourned the loss of Kodachrome, but that was more nostalgia. Seriously, Kodak hasn't made anything of value in years ... and I currently own something like 5 or 6 cameras, so it's not like I'm not in the market for things you'd think they'd be making.
This is just the dying throws of a company who has failed to remain relevant in a changing environment.
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Not true at all, not when you have so called 'anti-trust' legislation thrown against you by the government [nytimes.com].
I am not saying that Kodak would have survived for sure if government wasn't attacking it earlier, but you can't say they were at fault for their business when government was heavily meddling with it.
It's similar enough with the government interfering with AT&T and T-Mobile. Gov't prevents the merger and later one or both companies will suffer enough damage that may put them out of business, but yo
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AT&T merging with T-Mobile is extremely bad for the consumer, and a large number of employees within both companies. The only people it benefits are the major shareholders, because they'll be able to manipulate the market. This has absolutely nothing to do with Kodak repeatedly ignoring where digital photography was going, and then hiding their heads in the sand as the world ignored them.
Kodak have had the tech, the knowledge and the brand name to do well. They fucked up. They should be used as an examp
Re:Death Rattle (Score:5, Insightful)
I've read that article ... and, quite honestly, it sounds like a legitimate applilcation of anti-trust legistlation ...
That's like saying that I can't legally have someone else service my car because GM has forbade it. It's my property, and I can employ who I like to repair it. GM doesn't have the right to restrict that, and neither did Kodak
Blah blah blah ... corporations would fuck us all over if someone didn't keep an eye on them. Don't believe me? Go feed your children some melamine laced [wikipedia.org] baby formula.
The all wonderful free market is a philosophical ideal to some people ... to the rest of us, it's a mechanism which if not controlled will lead to horribly bad results. And, quite frankly, even with controls it does.
But, I can tell that you kneel at the altar and think it's infallible ... so, whatever ... I completely disagree with you.
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- except that the regulation itself is unconstitutional and the fact is that all monopolies are created by government, not by market. In free market monopolies don't exist, only economies of scale, only companies that provide good product at good price, otherwise others enter the market with new ideas, tech and better prices.
But, I can tell that you kneel at the altar and think it's infallible ... so, whatever ... I completely disagree with you.
- that's a straw-man, I don't know what it means 'markets are infallible', I don't know what a 'fallibility' of a market is.
What I do know is that governments interfere with private individuals making private decisions and they end up destroying the markets.
Blah blah blah ... corporations would fuck us all over if someone didn't keep an eye on them. Don't believe me? Go feed your children some melamine laced baby formula.
- sure, this happens, and it's a crime, nobody has the right to harm others. There is nothing that needs to be done from 'regulations' point of view, only the existing criminal laws need to apply.
Of-course governments created the moral hazard by removing legal liability from corporations and so it's near impossible to hold anybody personally responsible and that is a problem, but again, it's a government created problem.
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But, I can tell that you kneel at the altar and think it's infallible ... so, whatever ... I completely disagree with you.
- that's a straw-man, I don't know what it means 'markets are infallible', I don't know what a 'fallibility' of a market is.
So you've verified him, and show it not to be a straw-man right there.
Re:Death Rattle (Score:4, Insightful)
See, there never has been what you term a truly free market ... so anytime someone says that is how it works, I am forced to conclude you're telling me about your religion -- there's no proof of it, only your assertion. You believe it, but I don't believe for a minute it's the natural 'fact' you seem to.
Name one market that has ever existed in the world that was truly free, and didn't more or less devolve into the strong screwing over the weak? There have always been governments and rules, and people have always tried to be the only game in town.
I think your free market is a myth, and I think the lovely outcomes people ascribe to it are pure fantasy with no real evidence.
What I know is that the markets are inherently flawed, don't produce the optimal results people like you claim they do, and would have been abused by people trying to gain the upper hand. And they always have.
They don't naturally arrive at optimal solutions, the freedom to choose with good information never materializes, and some greedy bastard will always lie, cheat, steal, and resort to violence to gain an upper hand ... but you seem to think that's the optimal method of how such things work.
Me, I think it's just glorified anarchy that's been elevated to a status where people worship it as if it was the most morally perfect outcome we could ever hope for -- if you apply the morality of a free market to a society, you get a very bleak future of selfish behavior and sacrificing every body else for your own gain. 'Enlightened self interest' translates into "fuck everyone else, give me mine".
That may be the only point we agree on ... of course, I don't think the solution is to remove the regulations. I think it's to remove the freedom from liability they enjoy now.
If we magically went to an unregulated, free market tomorrow ... I'm betting it would take centuries (if at all) to reach any form of equilibrium in which the behavior of companies was regulated by the market. And, since no such economy has ever existed for that long, you will get the exact opposite results that people claim that system would produce.
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See, there never has been what you term a truly free market
- I never said there needs to be a 'truly free market', there are degrees of freedom, and not having Patents/Copyrights/DMCA/SOPA/PIPA, etc. [wikipedia.org] is a good enough DEGREE of freedom for innovation and inventions and for a thriving technological culture to exist.
Of-course then there are other things, it would be good for example not to have currency counterfeiting, labor price setting, insane laws and regulations created by unelected, unauthorised offices, various wrong-headed social agenda that creates other bar
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You can completely disagree if you want. That does not make you correct.
Free markets would work better with a little less government manipulation.
Take the banking fiasco. FDIC! Federal insurance that says that if you put your money in the bank we guarantee that you are not going to lose it.
Take away that insurance and people are going to behave differently.
With it banks can not compete on safety. They can only compete on rates and free stuff. Is it surprising what we got?
Without the FDIC banks could compete
Re:Death Rattle (Score:4, Insightful)
And your lack of understanding of why FDIC exists in the first place doesn't make you correct.
See, after the Great Depression when banks basically gambled away the money people deposited, people figured out that without some controls and regulations, it would just happen again.
Unfortunately, starting with Reagan and going forward, people gradually removed the regulations on the banking industry. So, the junk debt which got passed off as AAA became everyone else's problem -- not just the people who had knowingly given risky debt.
So, the exact same market failure occurred in the 30's as recently .... an unregulated banking industry is basically a ponzi scheme, precisely because all the market is interested in doing is maximizing short term profit, and making sure other people carry the risk. It is just an incentive to rip people off -- essentially the whole world paid for a bunch of greedy American banks to foist off their bad debt while pretending it was secured/safe debt. It was essentially like kiting checks, only on a global scale.
A free market would never create a safer banking system ... you believe that, I'm sure ... but there is no actual evidence to believe that this wonderful unicorn you think of as the market arrives at good solutions. In fact, it's hard not to reach the opposite conclusion.
Citing an example of why the regulations were put there in the first place, and showing why the removal of them led to the same abysmal failure isn't successfully defending your point ... it's using an example of failure to attempt to prove something else. That's like saying that murder laws don't serve any purpose, and then showing the murder rate would go up if you didn't have a law against it.
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[noxsolutions.com] - starting from about 22:30 and going for a few minutes, just more people exposing what FDIC is what about, nothing to do with insuring depositors but had everything to do with bailing out banks.
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Interview with Vern McKinley [noxsolutions.com], research fellow at the Independent Institute & author of the new book Financing Failure: A Century of Bailouts, on why government interventions have always failed, the governmental propaganda used to expand federal power, and how the feds are covering their tracks.
Vern served as a legal advisor and regulatory policy expert for governments on financial sector issues in US, China and elsewhere, he testified in front of Congress with the board of governments on the Federal res
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Oooh, they're independent because they say so ... I'm sorry, but what about them makes me believe that?
Is it that they get funding from Exxon [exxonsecrets.org]? How about Philip Morris [powerbase.info]? How about the fact that they're well known shills for Microsoft [washingtonmonthly.com]?
I'm sorry, but you keep citing groups who are either shills for your beliefs, or the people who espouse them ... so I accuse you of circular logic and sleight of hand. These guys get together into a little self congratulatory circle j
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Maybe you should find a UFO that actually predicted any of the real problems with the economy like those, who actually understand what economics is did in the first place?
The Keynesians love to appeal to the Krugmans of the world, of-course the Krugmans of the world could be replaced with a simple MP3 recording, and all it should say is this:
Lower interest rates.
Print money.
Buy stuff with printed money.
Lower interest rates.
Print money.
Buy stuff with printed money.
Put it in a loop, you'll get all of your Nob
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That may be the second thing we agree on today ... I also think Greenspan was an idiot who mostly just seemed to sound like Ayn Rand.
Sadly, I just don't agree with the Libertarian models of economics either .. they're far to simplistic, and rely on assumptions I'm not convinced can be justified.
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I'm sorry, but you're citing a video in which Ron Paul is making claims and offering his assertions as fact ... of course he's saying what you want him to say, but that has not
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video in which Ron Paul is making claims
...
Just because Ron Paul says it, doesn't make it true
...
I could show you a vide of Pol Pot of Chairman Mao saying something
--
All this ad-hominem is fine and dandy, except it's NOT Ron Paul that is making any claims.
It's a CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY, where EXPERTS are called in to testify.
Thus the people who are making these claims in that testimony are NOT Ron Paul, but are
Dr. Lawrence Parks [montanasoundmoney.org] and at minute 7 of the video you can hear his credentials [youtube.com] (which are better than yours).
At 15:45 you can hear Dr. White's credentials, not too bad either. [wikipedia.org]
Of-course I have another comment here, referencing an interview with Vern McKinley [slashdot.org]
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corporations would fuck us all over if someone didn't keep an eye on them
- the market keeps an eye on them.
Here is a little something that's happening in Greece right now - drug shortages. [bloomberg.com] Why are there shortages of drugs in Greece? Because they can't pay and because government forces companies to sell at lower prices than they sell elsewhere, which means that wholesellers simply export the drugs back out of Greece and into Eastern Europe and probably other places, where these same drugs sell for more, this creates secondary market in other countries competing against the pha
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From 1,000 feet below Lower Harvard Bridge to Newburgh and South Shore Railroad Bridge, the channel becomes wider and deeper and the level is controlled by Lake Erie. Downstream of the railroad bridge to the harbor, the depth is held constant by
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Well, not necessarily, often people start companies with the goal of selling them, sometimes owners just want to retire. This is not one of those situations here, but the government involvement is likely to cause massive layoffs in one or both of these companies later on.
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Maybe you should read something [google.com] before starting with more nonsense. There are no monopolies except for government created ones.
Re:"low quality" flatters them too much (Score:2)
I bought a 5MP Kodak camera long ago as an upgrade from a Konica Minolta X20 (very tiny 3MP digicam - wife's still using it). Immediately discovered the highest quality settings on the Kodak were worse than the lowest quality settings on the X20, worse even comparing 3MP vs 5MP images. So badly compressed you could see the artefacts even on the camera LCD. Went back the same day.
Kodak were so intent on protecting their film business they never took digicams seriously and ruined their own business by crippli
Re:"low quality" flatters them too much (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the word you want is hubris [wikipedia.org].
It wasn't suicide, it was stupidity and arrogance.
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I don't know, I'd bet Google would be willing to give Apple a run for their money on the Kodak patents, given the patent acquisition spree they've been on recently.
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A death rattle can last for many many years. All that they have to do is follow SCO example, and fire everyone and just spend the remaining money on legal fees. And when the money is dried up, the lawyers can then receive guaranteed cash from future settlements.
Interesting that most of the innovation in the US is legally based, and not based on science or engineering.
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no time limit on patents...not like trademarks (Score:2)
There's nothing that says you need to defend a patent immediately. It's not like a trademark where if you don't defend it then you lose it.
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All that they have to do is follow SCO example, and fire everyone and just spend the remaining money on legal fees.
Well, sorta. SCOX lasted a lot longer than they otherwise would have thanks to their little (copyright, not patent) adventure, but there was no settlement, the final death was rather inglorious, and any recognizable name involved with it became pure poison in the industry.
If anything, I think that the whole SCOX story taught a valuable lesson about how not to run a company's exit strategy.
Heh... in the 90s... (Score:3)
...Apple and Kodak were the first two companies out of the gate with the very first consumer level digital cameras.
Re:Heh... in the 90s... (Score:4, Informative)
And the QuickTake 100 and 150 were both rebranded Kodak hardware.
Re:Heh... in the 90s... (Score:4, Funny)
Tired of this (Score:2, Informative)
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Copyright is different from patent ... but, it's hard to believe patents are spurring any innovation. They have quite the opposite result since only the big players can get into the game as they've all cross licensed a bazillion stupid patents.
These patents sounds like all the ones we joke are "system for doing something well known, but on a computer" ... instead, it's "but on a camera". And, as has been pointed out in this
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Copyright is different from patent
Indeed, both are fatally flawed, but in different ways. Copyrights are free, and cheap to register, and are easy to get, but they lasy WAY too long and carry way too many restrictions.
Patents, otoh, only last 20 years but they cost so much that you have to be rich to get one.
Imagine how technology would stagnate if patents lasted 95 years longer than their inventors? That's how art is stagnating. But patents could spur a lot more innovation if you or I could reasonably obt
First, it's patents, not copyrights. (Score:2)
Second, Kodak is a company that can actually claim to have developed real, patentable products in the imaging arena. One of the few such companies, actually.
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Are we honestly still to believe that current copyright law is driving innovation?
No, but it definitely drives people to write more. The situation in this story has nothing to do with copyright, but it's been demonstrated that authors write more because of copyright.
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So in this case, current PATENT law is not hurting innovation at all. It's doing even less wrt t copyright.
Uhm. So, because Apple and HTC have big enough war-chests of patents, departments of lawyers on call and huge investments and budgets set aside for these situations, we're fine? I agree that Apple and HTC are fine, but I am not sure I am fine with those things being a requisite for being allowed to innovate...
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"I am inclined to believe that this suit could allow Kodak to avoid bankruptcy and continue their research which previously brought us things like digital photography"
Too bad they're light-fields behind Lytro. See what I did there?
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My thoughts exactly. This is getting ridiculous. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any solution as long as government is bought and paid-for by corporations.
Maybe it's time to end corporate personhood? [movetoamend.org]
Either to end corporate personhood or to make corporations have the responsibilities of persons as well as the rights...
No worries, Apple has an ace in the hole (Score:5, Funny)
Apple recently patented "methods of extracting monetary compensation by engaging in litigation over patent rights."
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Apple recently patented "methods of extracting monetary compensation by engaging in litigation over patent rights."
That's closer to the truth than you think, except that I personally don't believe that they have the slightest interrest in monetary compensation. The feeling I get is that Apple started the patent litigation ball rolling for the express purpose of doing as much damage to Android as possible, not for the potential of licensing fees or financial relief.
By raising the specter of lawsuits among hardware manufacturers, with the attendant legal costs, as well as the massive wastes of time and resources, Apple ma
The 'obviousness' test... (Score:3)
How obvious do things have to be?
FFS, 90% of the patents you hear about are things that simply come from a software engineer implementing a feature the way just about any other software engineer would do it. It's "obvious" that this is a potential solution.
I can understand patenting things that seem to be game changers, real breakthroughs (some algorithmic work for example), but methods of previewing images? The Amazon 'one-click' patent? FFS, how that hasn't been "obvious"ed to death, I'll never know. Hmmm, do you think people like to do things easier or faster. What? Remember their default choices and offer them a "do the same sh** you did the last time I bought something" button? HOLY CRAP THAT IS GENIUS! Lol...
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I can understand patenting things that seem to be game changers, real breakthroughs (some algorithmic work for example), but methods of previewing images?
Methods for previewing images taken at x resolution and held in some specific format THEN down-graded to y resolution in some other specific resolution for the display (perhaps in hardware OR perhaps in software, but probably BOTH) does involve algorithms that might very well involve "innovation".
But that doesn't mean Kodak hasn't made a fundamental shift in their basic revenue concept from innovating products that they eventually ship, to trolling their existing patent portfolio.
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Anything 'might' be innovation, the likelyhood is that there is none, especially given the patents I've reviewed. Hell, my company owns a patent that is reasonably innovating in the field of Natural Language Processing, and it is RIDICULOUSLY broad. Basically, if you perform a statistical analysis of textual input (including input from a voice recognition system) in order to discern a goal or request of the initiator you're bordering on a patent violation - how crazy is that? The patent office should nev
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Downgrading/upgrading resolution is not something you patent...
If you do it with a particularly "innovative" algorithm, sure you do.
Restructuring (Score:2)
Here is what will happen to the company if it goes bankrupt: various auctions, where parts of the company will be sold, or maybe just one buy out for a fraction of the cost, then there will be restructuring, which means assets will be salvaged, jobs eliminated, maybe departments will be sold off maybe technologies will be sold off, maybe the company will be rebuilt as a different company with some income generating streams, whatever. This is the same thing that happens when they take down an old ship or a p
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The ultimate Irony that will probably be lost on you is that based on free market principles Kodak is a perfect example of the market doing it's job and punishing a company that has not kept up and is no longer producing valuable products services that people want to buy.
- this is funny combined with this:
If they HAD NOT been 'attacked by the ebil gubment' this fate would probably have been avoided, and we probably wouldn't even have digital imaging now because they would have invented it, sat on it and/or prevented digital cameras from being imported.
You don't see the obvious stupidity in those statements? You don't clearly. It's government that created the copyright/patent system that even allows companies to use government force to prevent others from reverse-engineering or even coming up with their own solutions that are similar in nature to solve the same problem, and you are saying: government monopoly creation is a good thing?
The government CREATES the monopoly in the first place, by granting these 'copyrights/pa
Re: (Score:2)
You call them 'Robber Barons', I call them successful entrepreneurs. Nobody should be in a position to steal power from the people with the use of the government system, as long as that rule is enforced (and obviously it's not), then we don't have a corruption problem, because with politicians having nothing to sell, nobody would bother buying anything from them.
Monopolies make power easier to maintain so they are the natural result of any unrestricted economic system.
- yeah, again, there are no such things as monopolies unless government is involved, because only government can create LEGAL barriers to entry in
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The government creates legal barriers to entry, which are the only barriers to entry that have court, police, military and legal (and often public opinion, no matter how mistaken) power behind them, which makes the government barrier to entry the only type of barrier that cannot be overcome without actually penetrating the government, thus creating further corruption of the political system.
The very fact that government deals with business in the first place, by regulating and taxing it, is corruption, beca
wait wait wait... (Score:2)
Wasn't Kodak pretty much last into the consumer digital market? Quite famously so, as I recall. That DCS monstrosity from the eighties doesn't count.
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They were one of the first. They were selling Kodak Digital Science cameras in the mid-90s. But they never really developed it much (and the optics weren't much good in those cameras either)
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I know Kodak did some early work in the area; wonder if they have patents from that era that they waited to exploit until now. The thing is, the company continued like the digital camera was a novelty that had some specialist (scientific) application but no broad consumer base, long past the time when it was apparent that film was on life support.
For instance, in my opinion Kodak could have dominated the home printer market, had they made an effort sooner to migrate their kiosk technology -- pigment-based
Kodak is not a patent troll (Score:4, Informative)
It invented most of the stuff, and it licenses its patents to most everyone(some 30 companies at last count including LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung Electronics and Nokia ). It just wants Apple and HTC to pay up. I would recommend they do because having a nice friendly little Kodak license your patents is better than having
a competitor acquire kodak. Also the company is using the patents in its own products.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you seriously going to say (with a straight face, we'll have no giggling or chuckling) that transmitting a digital image by reading a configuration file to know where to put a file and then transmitting it to that location is considered innovative?
Or how about previewing a picture? I mean.. these are ideas that were out since MS-DOS was around. Using the idea in another product is not innovation.
If I invent a hovering wallet, do you think it's innovative if I patent how to open that wallet? It's the
Good (Score:2)
The more this escalates, the better the chance we'll get some meaningful reform.
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Normally I would agree, but the public already has a positive perception of Kodak, and they can easily draw sympathy since they were not only still at the top of their field, but providing a lot of the advancement of that field, when computers sidelined them. The invented narrative that the computers were stealing patented technologies from other fields is emotionally satisfying, and people might cling to it even before having looked at the facts... and therefore, not caring about claimed facts.
That then le
The only way that anything's going to get made... (Score:4, Insightful)
... is to either tear down the patent system, or just allow monopolies/collusion.
Because otherwise, the way things are going, nobody will be able to manufacture anything given this circle of choke holds we seem to have.
Those who can, do.... (Score:2)
Those you can, do. Those you can't, sue.
Gotta pay for the shysters (Score:2)
Bankrupcy avoidance (Score:2)
Might work, but if they are almost broke, how can they fund a long term fight with people that are HUGE and have deeper pockets?
Or... could they just be looking for a outright buy-out to get them to go away?
Re:When you can't innovate, (Score:5, Informative)
Kodak has been pretty capable on the innovation front. They pretty much invented the digital camera. Their problem has been the business execution to make money off their innovation.
Though of late they probably haven't been innovating so much. Their current CEO has made two failed attempts to become a printer company and a TV company which are two markets which are completely dominated by incumbents and they've been bleeding money throughout the attempt.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Kodak is far from being capable on the innovation front. They made the first digital camera in 1975 but they where not capable of making it into a practical useful consumer product for over thirty years. This is definitely not a prime example of innovation. On the contrary I would say.
Re:When you can't innovate, (Score:5, Funny)
The landlord says the rent is late, you may have to litigate
Don't worry, Beeeeeeeee Happy....