Lucent Sues Microsoft over Xbox 360

[Inane_Dork]

Copying ideas and, dare I say, reverse engineering are a lot more common in programming than some people think.

 

[Simon F]

I guess what pisses me off, is that the truly smart companies NEVER patent their "technology", they don't want it EVER to become public (e.g. Coca Cola)..

Errrrr... coca cola's formula would not be patentable anyway.

Are you implying that IBM's research group is not a truly smart company?

 

[slider]

It's much easier, and cheaper, to take a succesful product, copy it's features, and add some additional functionality. Sorry but that's the reality of alot of software companies, not just MS.

I guess from this common sense principle comes the phenomenon we know as Middleware.

Not making a call on this though. I'm no lawyer though. Handily my brother is and specialises in patents (not sure exactly what type though). I'll consult him for his views.

 

[Squeak]

Errrrr... coca cola's formula would not be patentable anyway.

Are you implying that IBM's research group is not a truly smart company?

Well, the sad but obvious fact is that in the last 50 or so years, patents has become a major cashcow for large to medium size corporations, going against everything patents was invented for in the first place.
Not filing for patent is not the "smart thing" to do from a classic commercial/capitalistic standpoint, but it is the Right Thing (TM) to do, both from a moral standpoint and with the overall long term well being of the industry in sight.

 

[skaboss]

Hey the way I see it, if Sony and every other DVD player manufacturer of even 40$ walmart DVD players can make a Decoder that's non-infringement, why does MS have to steal tech from 1993!
and they did it for xbox and knowingly kept it in the 360?? for that they should loose because of thier ignorance.

thats my 2 cents

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not filing for patent is not the "smart thing" to do from a classic commercial/capitalistic standpoint, but it is the Right Thing (TM) to do, both from a moral standpoint.

I don't think that fair. Though this is going outside the realm of this forums discussion, I'll just say that when someone has invested substantial amounts to develop a new tech, and someone else is free to copy it, that's not right. The Dyson vaccuum cleaner is an example where an inability to afford to upkeep the patent for 1 year saw the tech which he invested, very heavily at personal risk, was free for anyone to use.

Personally I think the patent system should be such that you cannot prevent someone using your idea, but they have to pay royalties (capped at something sensible) so that the whole of humanity can share in new ideas while developers can still make returns on their investments. At the moment two competing companies can develop two competing useful features that the public would want at the same time in one product, but that won't happen as long as the features won't be shared.

 

[Jabbah]

Hey the way I see it, if Sony and every other DVD player manufacturer of even 40$ walmart DVD players can make a Decoder that's non-infringement, why does MS have to steal tech from 1993!
and they did it for xbox and knowingly kept it in the 360?? for that they should loose because of thier ignorance.

Yes, because it is Microsoft, if they infringed a patent then they must have done it knowingly by trawling the patent database for something to steal and implement in one of their products

One thing I dont understand is this appears to be an MPEG2 decoding issue. Is this done in software on the Xbox and 360? I thought it was hardware decoding which would have been on nvidias hardware in the xbox and atis in the 360. If it is a hardware issue then thats 2 seperate hardware suppliers that have infringed - is this the first of many lawsuits? If it is a software decoder then it shouldnt be too difficult for MS to fix it for future releases.

Most of the patent seems to cover encoding which looks like MPEG2 with some extra bells and whistles to improve encoding for HD formats. The decoder just supports the extra bells and whistles and uses different decoding paths by taking hints from the stream. Now the xbox only supported standard MPEG2(?), if so this may be to do with how the decoder can output directly to different resolutions instead of scaling after decoding. (If the xbox does that)

Either way I find it hard to believe that MS are going to be the only ones to fall foul of this if Lucent win the case.

 

[Guden Oden]

One thing I dont understand is this appears to be an MPEG2 decoding issue. Is this done in software on the Xbox and 360? I thought it was hardware decoding which would have been on nvidias hardware in the xbox and atis in the 360.

There is no MPEG2 decoder in the NV2A GPU (xbox), and most likely not in xenos (360) either. There just isn't any point in putting in dedicated hardware for something that is so computationally non-intensive as DVD MPEG2 playback. You wouldn't occupy more than maybe 2% of CPU resources (5% at the very most) in the 360 to play back a DVD movie, so what would be the point of having special hardware for it?

 

[Jabbah]

The writ is now available.

The writ centres around the following two claims of the patent:

13. An apparatus for decoding a compressed digital video signal, comprising:

a means for receiving a compressed digital video bit stream; and

a means responsive to a motion compensation type signal for selectively and adaptively performing motion compensated decoding of frames of the compressed video bit stream.


15. The apparatus of claim 13, in which the decoding means comprises:

a means responsive to a motion compensation type signal and selectively responsive to frame motion vectors and field motion vectors for producing an adaptive motion compensated estimate of a decoded video signal;

a means responsive to the compressed digital video bit stream for producing a decoded estimate error signal; and

a means responsive to the adaptive motion compensated estimate and the estimate error signal for producing a decoded video signal.

From what I remember from uni these are pretty central to MPEG2 decoding and all decoders would need to implement them. Has MS just "forgoten" to pay a licensing fee somewhere along the lines?

 

[booomups]

like the jpeg patent, let everyone use it for a decade and then sue all of em, starting with a big company.

 

[aaaaa00]

Has MS just "forgoten" to pay a licensing fee somewhere along the lines?

More likely MS is just the biggest richest most convenient target to fire the lawyers at right now.

 

[Deepak]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20060414/tc_pcworld/125411

Lucent may have a stronger case for an injunction to block the sale of Xbox 360s than NTP did to shut down BlackBerry service in the recently resolved case against Research in Motion (RIM), Akerly says. That's because Lucent makes and sells technology, whereas NTP was simply a holder of the patent under dispute in its case, he explains, adding, "I don't know for sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if Lucent practiced the patent, unlike an NTP."