Forgent Networks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Forgent Networks is a software company whose primary revenue source is the licensing of patents. It also has a software division (NetSimplicity) which specializes in room scheduling and fixed assets management software.

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since March 2007.

This article or section is written like an advertisement.
Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point of view per Wikipedia policy.
Mark blatant advertising for speedy deletion with {{db-spam}}. (help, talk)

In 2002 Forgent asserted that through its wholly owned subsidiary Compression Labs, Inc. it owns and will enforce patent rights on the widely-used JPEG image compression standard which is used widely on the World Wide Web. The announcement has created a furor reminiscent of Unisys' attempts to assert its rights over the GIF image compression standard.

The patent cited is U.S. Patent 4,698,672 , "Coding system for reducing redundancy".

It has been speculated that the legal principle of laches may apply in this case.

The JPEG community has responded to Forgent's claims by issuing a news release, stating that it believes that prior art exists that would invalidate Forgent's claims relating to the baseline implementation of JPEG, and launching an appeal for prior art evidence.

They further state:

It has always been a strong goal of the JPEG committee that its standards should be implementable in their baseline form without payment of royalty and license fees, and the committee would like to record their disappointment that some organisations appear to be working in conflict with this goal. Considerable time has been spent in committee in attempting to either arrange licensing on these terms, or in avoiding existing intellectual property, and many hundreds of organisations and academic communities have supported us in our work.

The up and coming JPEG 2000 standard has been prepared along these lines, and agreement reached with over 20 large organisations holding many patents in this area to allow use of their intellectual property in connection with the standard without payment of license fees or royalties.

In April 2004, Forgent Networks stated that 30 companies had already paid US$90 million in royalties. On April 23, lawsuits were filed against 31 companies, including Adobe Systems, Apple Computer and IBM, for infringement of their patent. On September 26, 2005, Axis Communications, one of the defendants, announced a settlement with Compression Labs Inc.; the terms were not disclosed. As of late October 2005, six companies were known to have licensed the patent from Forgent including Adobe, Macromedia, Axis, Color Dreams, and Research In Motion.

On May 25, 2006 the USPTO rejected a part of the claims Forgent Networks is asserting against the JPEG standard on the basis that the prior art submitted by PUBPAT completely anticipated those claims. In August 11, 2006 Forgent Networks received notice from the NASDAQ Stock Market regarding non-compliance with the minimum bid price rule.

The company issued a press release on November 1, 2006 stating that they settled their remaining claims against roughly 60 companies regarding U.S. Patent 4,698,672 . It was reported that the settlement came to $8 million and was paid by, among other companies, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems.

Forgent Networks has stated it is now shifting its focus to U.S. Patent 6,285,746 , which relates to a computer controlled video system allowing playback during recording. This technology is very common in modern-day digital video recorders. While the patent was filed in 1991, the first litigation was initiated in 2005.