Soldato
- Joined
- 26 Dec 2005
- Posts
- 16,216
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- Paisley
Sony Sued Again.
- Thread starter geordie10
- Start date
And that is just the board of directors, the list of contributors and supporting companies is huge.
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/en/about/SupportingCompanies.html
I would guess the company that thinks it's got the patent is going after the highest profile of the blu-ray hardware companies, as if they win that one it's then much easier and faster to go after the others (it sets a precident and would hopefully mean the other companies wouldn't fight as hard).
Otherwise the company might end up taking on a couple of dozen other companies one at a time which could take years and cost a huge amount.
Personally i'm not going to say that they are in the right, or the wrong because I don't know the exact details of the patent in question - iirc another such patent dispute in regards to disks on the surface was without basis, until you realised that the patent covered a particular method of making the disk and the company didn't act in that case until someone else made use of that method (I believe it was to do with using cheaper materials for the recording surface of a disk - it hadn't been violated in the recordable disks previously because the companies had used the other, more expensive method).
Basically you can patent a way to do something, even if there is already another way to do the same thing, as it's the actual process that can be important as much as the end result*.
I'm guessing in this case the company possibly thinks that the blu-ray method of reading additional tracks (on the second/third/forth layers) of a disk might infringe the patent, but DVD multiple layers/tracks didn't.
I don't think you even need a working prototype, just the idea and a workable method for doing it (even if at that time you can't produce a working model as because it needs further work).
And before anyone says leeches, it's worth noting that patents are there to protect the people that come up with an idea or device, and yes some people do abuse the system (it's laughably easy in the states, as their patent office is very undermanned so doesn't perform the checks properly), but a lot of large companies also have a habit of ignoring the niceties of licensing technology from others when they think they can get away with it (MS are probably the best known for this, but probably not the worst).
*If I worked out a theorectical way to focus a light beam into a laser with magnets
, but couldn't actually produce the mechanism at the time I might have a valid patent, despite not being able to produce the system at the time, and there already being other ways to focus a light source into a laser.
Otherwise the company might end up taking on a couple of dozen other companies one at a time which could take years and cost a huge amount.
Personally i'm not going to say that they are in the right, or the wrong because I don't know the exact details of the patent in question - iirc another such patent dispute in regards to disks on the surface was without basis, until you realised that the patent covered a particular method of making the disk and the company didn't act in that case until someone else made use of that method (I believe it was to do with using cheaper materials for the recording surface of a disk - it hadn't been violated in the recordable disks previously because the companies had used the other, more expensive method).
Basically you can patent a way to do something, even if there is already another way to do the same thing, as it's the actual process that can be important as much as the end result*.
I'm guessing in this case the company possibly thinks that the blu-ray method of reading additional tracks (on the second/third/forth layers) of a disk might infringe the patent, but DVD multiple layers/tracks didn't.
I don't think you even need a working prototype, just the idea and a workable method for doing it (even if at that time you can't produce a working model as because it needs further work).
And before anyone says leeches, it's worth noting that patents are there to protect the people that come up with an idea or device, and yes some people do abuse the system (it's laughably easy in the states, as their patent office is very undermanned so doesn't perform the checks properly), but a lot of large companies also have a habit of ignoring the niceties of licensing technology from others when they think they can get away with it (MS are probably the best known for this, but probably not the worst).
*If I worked out a theorectical way to focus a light beam into a laser with magnets
, but couldn't actually produce the mechanism at the time I might have a valid patent, despite not being able to produce the system at the time, and there already being other ways to focus a light source into a laser.