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Are Apple's Open Source Theora Claims Patent FUD?
,----[ Quote ]
| Maxwell's comments aside, I know that I
| personally contacted Theora's handlers
| (Xiph.org) at multiple points on Friday
| about the alleged patent issue and did not
| receive the courtesy of any response from
| them. If Apple or other patent holder had a
| similiar experience, perhaps they have been
| contacted and Maxwell just doesn't know
| about it (yet).
|
| Frankly I'm not surprised that a patent pool
| is being assembled against Theora at this
| time. As a Theora user myself (Firefox 3.6
| !!) I've seen how good the codec is which
| makes it a potential threat to the patent
| holders. Good technology unfortunately
| always seems to be at risk from those who
| think that their intellectual property is
| being infringed upon.
|
| That said, I would hope that one of the
| various open source patent commons can step
| up and help out Theora with some defensive
| patents and/or legal assistance. The great
| thing about open source is that the code is
| open, so if someone does come forward and
| show a patent claim (legitimate or
| otherwise), there is always an opportunity
| to code around it.
`----
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2010/05/are-jobs-open-source-theora-cl.html
Wireless handset communication system
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=W6l6AAAAEBAJ&dq=7,103,380
As Evidence of Prior Art, Defendant Apple Cites Gene Roddenberryâs
Tricorder and Maxwell Smartâs Shoe Phone
,----[ Quote ]
| In 1999, a company called NetAirus
| Technologies applied for a patent on a
| âwireless handset communication system,â and
| though laughably broad, the United States
| Patent and Trademark Office granted it in
| 2006. Now, four years later, the company is
| using it to come after Apple (AAPL). On
| Friday, NetAirus filed suit against Apple,
| alleging that the iPhoneâas a conceptâ
| infringes on its intellectual property.
|
| [..]
|
| How a patent so overly board could have made
| it through the USPTO is beyond me.
`----
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100504/netairus-apple/
Recent:
ITC investigates claims against Apple
,----[ Quote ]
| The US trade watchdog confirmed this week that it would investigate patent
| infringement allegations made by Elan Microelectronics against Apple last month.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/28/elan_apple_itc_probe/
Boycott Apple. Boycott Everyone.
,----[ Quote ]
| This is an abuse of police powers, an
| exercise in intimidation. The message is
| clear: annoy Apple, and Apple will crush you
| like a bug. A more appropriate response
| would have been dueling lawyers firing
| subpoenas at each other and racking up the
| appropriate number of billable hours. The
| most appropriate response would have been
| "Oops, we goofed, we let one of our trade
| secrets out, we need to be more careful."
|
| Trade secrets are exposed all the time.
| Execs lose things. Employees blab. Some
| journalists feel it is beneath their dignity
| to take advantage of such lapses. But it is
| not our job to protect their trade secrets,
| and especially not in this era of
| intellectual property madness where the
| balance of power is tipped heavily into the
| hands of big business, and every last little
| thing that displeases the corporate
| overlords is criminalized.
|
| [...]
|
| At best, in my un-legal but common-sense
| opinion, this is a minor civil matter, and
| surely not a criminal case that warrants a
| door-busting raid and possible felony
| charges. Both Mr. Hogan and Mr. Chen face
| possible felony charges, which is utterly
| insane.
`----
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2010-04-30-031-35-OP-BZ-AP
Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/1354246/Apple-To-Shut-Down-Lala-On-May-31
Open Letter to Steve Jobs
,----[ Quote ]
| May I remind you that H.264 is not an open
| standard? This video codec is covered by
| patents, and âvendors and commercial users
| of products which make use of H.264/AVC are
| expected to pay patent licensing royalties
| for the patented technologyâ (ref). This is
| why Mozilla Firefox and Opera have not
| adopted this video codec for their HTML5
| implementation, and decided to chose Theora
| as a sustainable and open alternative.
|
| [...]
|
| From: Steve Jobs
| To: Hugo Roy
| Subject: Re:Open letter to Steve Jobs:
| Thoughts on Flash
| Date 30/04/2010 15:21:17
|
| All video codecs are covered by patents.
| A patent pool is being assembled to go
| after Theora and other âopen sourceâ
| codecs now. Unfortunately, just because
| something is open source, it doesnât
| mean or guarantee that it doesnât
| infringe on others patents. An open
| standard is different from being royalty
| free or open source.
|
| Sent from my iPad
|
| Since it was an open letter, I think I have
| the right to publish his answer.
`----
http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2010/04/open-letter-to-steve-jobs/
Steve Jobs Hints At Theora Lawsuit
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/237238/Steve-Jobs-Hints-At-Theora-Lawsuit
Xiph.Org Foundation Responds To Steve Jobsâ Threat: âCreative Individuals Donât Really Like to Give Their Business to Jackbooted Thugsâ
,----[ Quote ]
| Here is Montgomeryâs response:
|
| Thomson Multimedia made their first
| veiled patent threats against Vorbis
| almost ten years ago. MPEG-LA has been
| rumbling for the past few years. Maybe
| this time it will actually come to
| something, but it hasnât yet. Iâll get
| worried when the lawyers advise me to;
| i.e., not yet.
|
| The MPEG-LA has insinuated for some time
| that it is impossible to build any video
| codec without infringing on at least
| some of their patents. That is, they
| assert they have a monopoly on all
| digital video compression technology,
| period, and it is illegal to even
| attempt to compete with them. Of course,
| theyâve been careful not to say quite
| exactly that.
|
| If Jobsâs email is genuine, this is a
| powerful public gaffe (âAll video codecs
| are covered by patents.â) Heâd be
| confirming MPEGâs assertion in plain
| language anyone can understand. It would
| only strengthen the pushback against
| software patents and add to Appleâs
| increasing PR mess. Macbooks and iPads
| may be pretty sweet, but creative
| individuals donât really like to give
| their business to jackbooted thugs.
`----
http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/xiph-org-foundation-responds-steve-jobs-threat.html
Pot, meet kettle: a response to Steve Jobs' letter on Flash
,----[ Quote ]
| Part of the reason why Flash and iPhone OS
| are proprietary is that Adobe and Apple
| agreed to the terms of the H.264 patent
| license. H.264, despite Jobs's claim, is not
| a free standardâpatents necessary to
| implement it are held by a group that
| requires all users to agree to a license
| with restrictive terms. Those terms have
| previously even been unavailable for
| examination online. We are publishing them
| on fsf.org today in order to comment on
| their unethical restrictions. The fact that
| H.264 is a commonly used standard does not
| make it a free standardâthe terms of its use
| are what matter, and they require all
| licensed software to include the following
| notice:
|
| THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC
| PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE
| PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A
| CONSUMER TO (I) ENCODE VIDEO IN
| COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD ("AVC
| VIDEO") AND/OR (II) DECODE AVC VIDEO
| THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED
| IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL
| ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A
| VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC
| VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE
| IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL
| INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG
| LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM
|
| You'll find similar language in the license
| agreements of Final Cut Studio, Google
| Chrome, Mac OS X, and Windows 7.
`----
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/pot-meet-kettle-a-response-to-steve-jobs-letter-on-flash.ars
Patent challenge looming for open-source codecs?
,----[ Quote ]
| If authentic, a new e-mail from Steve Jobs
| indicates that Apple and Microsoft--of all
| bedfellows--could be preparing to challenge
| the validity of open-source video codecs.
|
| Jobs' e-mail to Hugo Roy of the Free
| Software Foundation Europe, coupled with a
| similarly worded announcement from Microsoft
| on Friday, is a shot across the bow of
| backers of the open-source Ogg Theora video
| codec, used by Mozilla to bring HTML5 video
| technology to Firefox. Both Apple and
| Microsoft plan to use the h.264 codec in
| their HTML5 strategy, which is governed by a
| licensing body called MPEG LA. Apple and
| Microsoft, along with a host of tech
| companies, are also members of that group.
`----
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20003895-265.html
Steve Jobs: mystery patent pool to attack Ogg Theora
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/30/steve_jobs_claims_ogg_theora_attack/
Patent Pool to Thwart Open Source Codecs
http://www.daniweb.com/news/story280205.html
Apple May Be Gunning for Open Source Codecs
http://newteevee.com/2010/04/30/apple-may-be-gunning-for-open-source-codecs/
Meet the Hypocrites: Steve Jobs
,----[ Quote ]
| That led to the following paragraph:
|
| Adobeâs Flash products are 100%
| proprietary. They are only available
| from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority
| as to their future enhancement, pricing,
| etc. While Adobeâs Flash products are
| widely available, this does not mean
| they are open, since they are controlled
| entirely by Adobe and available only
| from Adobe. By almost any definition,
| Flash is a closed system.
|
| Notice anything curious about that
| paragraph? It's a perfect description of
| Apple's own business practices! Just replace
| "Adobe" and "Flash" with "Apple" and
| "iPhone", "iPad", "iPod/iTunes", or "Mac"
| and you get a nicely worded four sentence
| critique of Jobs' own company. Seriously...
| How can Jobs talk about openness when his
| notoriously secretive company is not only
| hypocritically on the warpath against Adobe,
| but recently goaded police into initiating a
| criminal investigation over the
| disappearance of Apple's fourth generation
| iPhone prototype, which was lost by one of
| Jobs' own employees!?
`----
http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2010/04/meet-hypocrites-steve-jobs.html
Steve Jobs on Flash (or the lack thereof) and more talk about tablets
http://opensource.com/life/10/4/steve-jobs-flash-or-lack-thereof-and-more-talk-about-tablets
Apple: Apple Raises E-book Prices For Everyone
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/04/30/2251220/Apple-Raises-E-book-Prices-For-Everyone
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