Huh? Whether a DVD uses the same alloy or not is irrelevent with regards to this patent.
Sony being sued over Blu-ray?
- Thread starter PSman
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Huh? Whether a DVD uses the same alloy or not is irrelevent with regards to this patent.
That's not quite true. When submitting a patent, you pay for a 'substantive search' to check if your idea is already patented. Though this search isn't going to be absolutely exhaustive, it does put an onus on the Patent Office to check you're not patenting the same thing that someone else has already patented.
Things can get a big mucky with the dates of patents. You can apply for a patent on a fdate and not have it issued until 2 years later, during which period another company can apply and get a patent validly, only to have it 'trumped' by the previous application. Waiting on patents is a tactic used by patent sharks. eg. In this case, it's hypothetically possible that a scientist following trends in optical media saw that a silver alloy was going to be the material of choice in some optical disks. He was also aware that any company worth it's salt would find a suitable alloy with or without his help. So he files a patent toot suite, but doesn't pay the inordinate fees needed to have it issued. Instead he waits. If companies choose some other solution, he can forget the whole idea and lose than more than a few hundred dollars. But if they do use a silver alloy, he can pay (getting a Patent Shark company to fund) to have his patent issued and because it was filed earlier (the company only filing when they had a working product, perhaps), gets to sue the company and make millions, whereas the best he'd hope for is a decent working man's salary for doing his job developing optical reflection media.
That's a hypothetical scenario and I don't know if that's what happened here. But the Patent Office doesn't guard against this, nor can any company. The Patent Office isn't suppoed to grant patents for stuff previously patented, but can do on technicalities AFAIK. But most importantly the patent office isn't supposed to patent any old thing, and that's something they've been doing for years. These patent infringement threads always boil down to the same thing. There's those that blame the infringer and say they're stealing other people's hard inventions and ought to be trounced. There's those that say the whole system's broken and the infringer isn't at fault and shouldn't be being picked on. The reality in any case is hard to pinpoint, and it's really the realm of the well educated law-courts to find out what went wrong. Of course, the fact that this particular case is pushing for an ignorant Jury trial to decided who's right casts suspicions...
If DVD9 uses the same alloy and was in existence before this patent was filed, it counts as prior art and an obvious solution. If you're creating an HD version of an existing disc, of course you're going to use the same or a similar reflected coating! You can't say 'ahhhh, but where I'm using the same silver alloy in a laser-based optical media, I'm using it with a blue laser instead, so it's a totally new and amazing technology that isn't obvious at all.'
The whole 'obvious' clause in patents is a doozy, as it's totally subjective. And it seems the US Patent Office has decided to ignore it (maybe not in this case. I dunno the specifics) and grant any old rubbish.
Exactly.
Thats exactly the problem of the system if thats how the "law" is expecting things to work
Only if Sony checked the patents and the Target patent was published prior to Sony going ahead with the tech. It's quite possible they checked and found nothing (as there's no 100% guarenteed way of checking prior patents. You just have to trawl through patents, and if somethings filed in a stupid area, you can accidentally miss it). And if it's not published yet, you won't find it. Thus it's possible that no-one's acted with 'arrogance' is disregard for other people's ontellectual property. But as is often the case, someone has to be the bad-guy right? Must be the big, bad multinational. Better blame them anyway. Or is it the parasitic Patent Sharks, playing the system for easy millions? Poor multi-nationals are having legal rings danced around them by these scurvy knaves, and death to all patent lawyers, right?
The problem with the patent system is it causes stupid cases like this. They act like if two companies came upon the idea at roughly the same time. Obviously the company without the patent stole it from the company with the patent. It's not always so black and white.
So we have cases like this while the Chinese tear apart all types of items copy it down to the very last circuit and get away scott free because no US patent is legally binding outside of the USA.
So we have cases like this while the Chinese tear apart all types of items copy it down to the very last circuit and get away scott free because no US patent is legally binding outside of the USA.
I looked at the text of the patent and it seems the claim amounts to almost the use of any type of silver alloy for optical discs. Half the periodic table is listed as possible alloying elements.
I feel that the `non-obvious' clause should be invoked in this case. It reads like Sony did a lot of legwork in the area of disc manufacture and technology (see the references in the patent), then Target altered the substrate material by using an alloy. This in itself is patent worthy, and they aren't trolling because they make discs. However, it seems like a logical progression that one would expect any disc manufacturer ot make. Also, the attack at Sony directly either suggests its an attempt to money-grab or none of the other manufacturers have trodden on it (or they licensed it).
The problem with the patent system now is someone can claim a patent on the basic principle then stifle any further innovation beyond it. With so many companies doing this for grass-roots technologies, it makes any attempt to further fields more a case of best-lawyers rather than best-product. Unfortunately, you can't really resolve these two issues.
Well, the founder of Target Technology developed the use for silver alloy as a cheaper alternative to gold and provides better yeilds than silicon, another alternative. The alloy film is already used in the majority of DVD9 and DVDR and its use is patented in the US, Europe, Austrialia, Taiwan and China. Target Technology seems to actually provides the silver alloy film for use in manufacturing.
So its seems that the patents are not obscure nor is the company behind the patents. Nor does it seems that Target is a patent suit scavenger.
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Not to mention the lawsuit is specifically targetted at DADC, SCEA, and Sony Pictures, so it seems that they're specifically focussing on pressed discs manufactured by Sony (perhaps Panasonic's for example are different or they license the alloy in question?), although I would think that SPE and SCEA would be recused as they are both mainly just customers.
I think this latter remark is Patrick's point. Rather than come to an amicable business resolution, the first action is go for an injunction and ban all Sony BRD products. It's pretty ridiculous really, whether infringed or not. First you should try to resolve the matter through ordinary means - that's the mature, responsible thing to do. I guess this hasn't happened yet, as the reporting hasn't mentioned anything about 'A spokesperson for Target said, "after months of negotiation, Sony have proven unwilling to compromise which has forced us into this unfortunate need to seek legal recourse."' That may have happened. We'll have to see what follow-up PR statements Target provide, as this first reporting is just the filing and without interviews. But my first guess is this wasn't the case, in good part because of with an appeal for trial by jury. Trial by jury is the preferred choice when you haven't got such a strong technical case, and instead want to leverage the jury's naivety towards the technologies involved and patent law.
We talking about business and big coporations here, which is an area that doesn't operate on moral grounds. Bringing forth suits creates leverage. Nothing brings two sides to the table quicker than a lawsuit.
Target doesn't sell products directly to retail consumers, they sell to manufacturers. Nor do they seem to be a public company, so there is no need for any PR statements released to the general public.
Based on the fact the company is compensated for the silver alloy film present in the majority of DVD9 and DVD-R discs and have several patents in several countries, they seem to have a very strong case.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
It doesn't matter. The people who were on the wrong side of the Immersion patent case are the same ones on the wrong side of this one. Does that surprise you?
It has nothing to do with the strength of the case, it has everything to do with certain individual's dislike of the current patent system.
Immersion wasn't a company founded on trolling for patents, they had legit non-gaming uses for the rumble tech. I told these same people that until I was blue in the face, yet that information was disregarded.
The idea that Target licenses the use of this alloy to other manufacturers for DVDs and that Sony was most likely aware of these licenses and arrogantly decided that patent laws don't apply to them, is a direct parallel to the Immersion situation where Microsoft (another big, evil, multi-national corporation), easily and quickly 'bowed to the little guy' and paid Immersion licensing fees while Sony refused.
The idea that the filing of a lawsuit is the first communication between these two companies in regard to the possible patent infringement is absurd.
The further idea that the lawsuit is more lucrative is equally absurd.
Assuming actual patent infringement, it would have been far more lucrative for Target to simply notify Sony of the infringement and work out a licensing deal with them similar to the ones they have with the DVD manufacturers.
To put forth the idea (without any factual support) that they immediately sent their lawyers into court to SUE! SUE! SUE! rather than to try to work out a licensing agreement with Sony, when they make their money from licensing agreements, shows an extreme amount of bias.
Huh?
It doesn't matter that it's been used in DVD-9, that's like saying "hey they paid to use our patent and since it's already been paid for we should be able to use it too". I don't think so.
"Hey Microsoft already paid Immersion to use their rumble patents so we shouldn't need to pay for something that's already paid for."
I have no idea why you are directing this at me as I see merit in Target lawsuit. However, very few lawsuits make it to trial and most are settled out of court. Filing suits are typically used as a first step towards real communication and negotiation.
Filing lawsuits and filing frivolous lawsuits are two different situations, the former shouldn't be construed as a negative because the latter is used and abused by lawyers and companies as a get rich easy scheme.
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Huh?
It doesn't matter that it's been used in DVD-9, that's like saying "hey they paid to use our patent and since it's already been paid for we should be able to use it too". I don't think so.
"Hey Microsoft already paid Immersion to use their rumble patents so we shouldn't need to pay for something that's already paid for."
Silver alloy was introduced for use in DVD9 by Target so it makes shifty's point of being prior art irrelevant.
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What??
Its completely irrelevant if DVD9 used the same alloy or not. Whats relevant is who owns the patent for the alloy. For all you know, DVD9 could be using a licence for that patent.
Just because you make a "HD version out of it" doesn't give you any legal rights at all to use the patent without a licence agreement.
If an invention has been described in prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.
