RED Patent may not be legal

I have been enjoying a YouTube channel by a guy who makes and sells 3rd party REDmags. He has been showing what I think a lot of us ready knew, that red mags and other products by red use low grade parts, have zero personal R&D and are absolutely not made in the USA. His most recent VIDEO,

does an excellent job breaking down a timeline that shows how REDs patent is not legal as it was not filed in time. Interesting stuff enjoy if you care.

I don't care about CDNG I just find this quite interesting. Also if submitted (I am guessing the videos creator did) to the US patent office they would have to look into it, as this has nothing to do with the vagueness of the patent, but the patent being invailed due to deceit and failure to file in 1 year since invention.

ONE angry man can do more than a 100 high priced lawyers.

Kinefinity(KineRAW) and Z-CAM(ZRAW) will be very happy to see this.

This thread will most likely get removed, I think BMD wants to steer clear of all this controversy.

That being said, I think RED has a lot to talk about I’m regards to their transparency.

This became more and more interesting. I would like to add some crazy unconfirmed rumor here I remember it was a very strange post soviet company (formally could be based on same factory branch as older ussr "Kinor" film cameras https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinor) they sell some 2K and 4K digital cinema cameras (Google "kinor digital camera") https://cinematography.com/index.php?/t ... igital-4k/ the specs where amazing, but no one see those cameras in real life, and no any footage where ever provided, so most people came to conclusion that it is some kind of another russian fake. RED could just purchase and adapt some of that tech to RED cameras. in similar way Tessive Time Filter technology where purchased and became RED Motion Mount...

Given how the US Patent Office apparently works, it may not be as clear cut as suggested. And even if it was, maybe Blackmagic doesn't even care anymore. Remember, the first iteration of BRAW was only a start, you're likely to see much more development in this sphere, especially when combined with Resolve.

RED claims the very principle of lossless recording of sensor data, so it clams all the cases of raw recording including the lossless compression. So, either BRAW or any other incarnation of raw can be restored to the actual data directly from sensors (and so is RAW and covered with RED claim) - or it cannot and as such is by definition lossy.

Unfortunately, it's well known that the US Patent Office pretty much approves anything. This goes against what is accepted everywhere else in the world, but that's what they do.

While this thread survives, I'll chime in as a former U.S. patent examiner and practicing patent attorney of 20 years: no, it doesn't, Ray. Your remark sounds like a cheap, uninformed shot of the type I often see on forums inhabited by experts in areas other than my own. Sorry it was you, today, bud, but I couldn't let this one go.

I don't care about CDNG.

Many do.....

I find it incredible that RED has patented RAW video. It would be like Canon patenting RAW stills and everyone else would be still shooting Jpeg. I must be missing something here as this seems fundamentaly wrong?

I find it incredible that RED has patented RAW video. It would be like Canon patenting RAW stills and everyone else would be still shooting Jpeg. I must be missing something here as this seems fundamentaly wrong?

Not quite true. They have patented compressed RAW video.

Uncompressed RAW video is still in the clear, and most still cameras that shoot RAW are shooting uncompressed RAW (though some do offer RAW compression for stills).

BRAW is not impacted because it is not a true RAW format. It may be a very good video codec or hybrid of some sort, but it is not actually RAW.

Here is another way to avoid RED patent.
Split video into chunks <2K resolution and then compress and record (easy to join later). Also- compression <6:1 doesn't fall into RED patent either.
There as to be a reason why their patent sys above 2K. Probably <2K was already patented some way.

Still no idea who gave them such a broad patent. Let hope it gets cancelled.
It's also interesting that RED sued Jinni.Tech, but later they pulled it off. So they are not so confident anymore

While this thread survives, I'll chime in as a former U.S. patent examiner and practicing patent attorney of 20 years: no, it doesn't, Ray. Your remark sounds like a cheap, uninformed shot of the type I often see on forums inhabited by experts in areas other than my own. Sorry it was you, today, bud, but I couldn't let this one go.

I've been following the issue of US Patent Office approvals for a long time and a quick search of Google shows how bad it is:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... deception/

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house ... ad-patents

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... -approved/

This has been going on for a long time. There are many reasons why it's broken, but it's broken.

It's not broken, it's the American way.

Everything about RED is a sham. Their hype machine is totally on point.

"RED Patent may not be legal"

Do you think so!


I am super irritated by this. Red has single handedly stopped me from making my own camera through saying one thing and not delivering, and by this patent. You got to make Business decisions, not just waltz down the road with rose coloured glasses on heading towards certain failure. When people are putting out they are going put out a product that is going to destroy your business, you have to decide to walk, and when you come to a patent that gives them rights over basic unpatentable technology you need to use, you got to think about the trouble, and walk, not prance or waltz.

Speaking generally, of the general problem, and not any situation or company in particular: People should sue for damages, anybody pushing for rights through the patent system illegally, including anybody involved and legal council as a "criminal conspiracy". Making companies too scared to try this is the patent system, is one of the ways to do this. It is new ground to set precedent. If, say, the raw patent was illegal, this could add up to billions of dollars across companies and consumers. We have crowd funding now to do this, and I'm sick and tired of being taken for a patent ride, and patent damages from what's happening in the patent sector.

Unfortunately, it's well known that the US Patent Office pretty much approves anything. This goes against what is accepted everywhere else in the world, but that's what they do.

While this thread survives, I'll chime in as a former U.S. patent examiner and practicing patent attorney of 20 years: no, it doesn't, Ray. Your remark sounds like a cheap, uninformed shot of the type I often see on forums inhabited by experts in areas other than my own. Sorry it was you, today, bud, but I couldn't let this one go.

Steven, what do you think about this? Recording raw is not novel or innovative in itself, compressing raw is not novel or innovative in itself, recording compressed raw is not novel and innovative in itself, recording compress raw, or uncompressed, or lossless or visually lossless, raw above 2k is definitely not novel or innovative. It's insane. Even a couple of obvious offsets against channels, like done in normal video or old prior art cineform raw, is not innovative or obvious.

Unfortunately, it's well known that the US Patent Office pretty much approves anything. This goes against what is accepted everywhere else in the world, but that's what they do.

While this thread survives, I'll chime in as a former U.S. patent examiner and practicing patent attorney of 20 years: no, it doesn't, Ray. Your remark sounds like a cheap, uninformed shot of the type I often see on forums inhabited by experts in areas other than my own. Sorry it was you, today, bud, but I couldn't let this one go.

Steven, what do you think about this? Recording raw is not novel or innovative in itself, compressing raw is not novel or innovative in itself, recording compressed raw is not novel and innovative in itself, recording compress raw, or uncompressed, or lossless or visually lossless, raw above 2k is definitely not novel or innovative. It's insane. Even a couple of obvious offsets against channels, like done in normal video or old prior art cineform raw, is not innovative or obvious.

Though I have no non-public knowledge of RED's patents, I can't opine on them. Sorry. Even if I joined the chorus of incendiary criticism, it wouldn't make a difference. We (U.S.) have legal mechanisms for making that difference, however.

I practice in a notoriously difficult subject matter area with the lowest patent allowance rate in the U.S. In that context, I bristled at Ray's swipe above, though I appreciate his perspective -- it was not personal. Second, I cannot deny the absurdity of some patents whose (ab)use underscores a need for ongoing patent reform and improvement of quality at the patent office. Finally, as a practitioner doing his level best in the trenches, I'm part of the system, not a blogger or freelancing journalist commenting on it.

But you could read it Steven, a d tell us what we are looking at. He reads it out on the video.

Its very late, and difficult to listen to, but I have tried to follow.

While it may seem to be this that or the other on the video, as I just told a freind who knows people launching constitutional cases, it's not that simple. As I just told another friend here, who used to work in court, about the relavencies of the levels of jurisdictions of law to each other, it's not that simple, and about some research he found which seemed to conclusively prove something. Whatever the law says, the meaning of the terms can be set by legal interpretation, office interpretation, legal judgments and interpretations, such as it doesn't say what it "seems" to say in plain language English, and the practice of, and deemed acceptable practice, is also influenced by office and judiciary. So despite the legislation or policy declaring something, it can be interpreted differently, allowing things which don't seem right. Now, getting back to plain English reading, the public disclosure included official publications, industry I believe, and not much else before. While Red stated what they were doing and repeated that in patent, they did not disclose, from what I can see, the details of how they did it, which should be the only potentially patentable part, if it was an novel innovative leap. So, not recording Bayer raw above 2k compressed visually lossless, but what unique novel innovative leapt ways they did that. I am dubious about that as well.

The video's creator criticises Red's complex language in the patent. But this is how you write a patent, by using language that covers as much possible opportunities as possible. The analogy I was taught, is that the innovative area your patent is on, is like a mining area, and you need to stake your claims as wide as possible to cover the area and potentially get more gold. When Red describes the "Bayer" sensor, they are describing any three colored sensor with two pixels of a 4 pixel cube, being the same color. When Bayer was invented there were two versions, the rggb, and a superior complementary version which was too processor intensive. So, red stakes on a number of similar sensor pattern rather than the potential name of only one of them. Saying Bayer would not describe what is meant concretely. Bayer could have other definitions, or someone could call their bayer sensor tubby, or something, and argue Bayer doesn't apply to them. Not so simple.

RED people alway use specific language and it's on purpose. They know what they are doing.
The best part is that at the end client is the king and atm. RED lost a lot of their reputation (it takes years to gain it back). There is always a point up to which you can "play" with people. I think RED time is about to end.

There is always a point up to which you can "play" with people. I think RED time is about to end.

I believe so too.
When a company looses its honesty with the customers, acts ignorant towards critics and stops being humble at their competitor and fights battles against everyone - they have already lost the war.
They just can’t see it yet.

They are not the first to do so.
And will not be the last.

Looks like it's going to be over. Apple is sueing RED over the patent. With the previously shown timeline, this will probably be easy. https://www.eoshd.com/2019/08/apple-sue ... nt-claims/

Yes, Karma is a bitch.

Especially in the most litigious country on the planet. Like I said above, we have mechanisms...

Yes, Karma is a bitch.

Especially in the most litigious country on the planet. Like I said above, we have mechanisms...

Indeed, but also note that it takes very deep pockets to litigate. You might win a case, but it's bankrupted you because of the cost.

Unlike jinnitech, Apple has the deepest pockets of them all.
The bully gets bullied by a bigger bully.
(The rule of law all over the world is MONEY).

Apple have already won this I believe.
It's all up to RED to get their head around it and accept the situation.

Another thing, is they claim they use standard cheap parts, but in reality, such things are usually specially picked highest performance and tolerant parts, even first specially made batches, and pay a mint for them, before the brand itself might get parts to use in its cheap products. This has been going on for many years, you pay for the estimated defect percentage of the parts. That's one reason so many motherboards were failing ten or more years ago, the motherboard companies were being supplied with higher defective rated parts as either lower defect rated parts, or knowingly (I forget how much of each, or if mainly unkown etc). My ex military intelligence buddies tend to hear of scams. One was, they had to check each load of cement aggregate that cane into a major construction, to check if it was of the prescribed spec, from another country. It's crazy, and such should be banned from trade in areas, until they can guarantee rule of law over their supply chain, and produce guaranteed quality of supplied material. It's crazy. I byy thing that fall apart with a year or so, because of the inferior plastic used goes brittle. If it looks buyable, it's OK mentality. So, what Red is doing, is nothing compared to this, and we need to keep that in mind. You can see there problems with h1. To do such a flag ship innovative design, they should have gone to a Nordic country to control the tech, then to an Asian manufacturer for commodity assembly, and finish finale priority parts assembly in Europe or USA, which Jim would like. But, they will still buy phones, and strip the chips in them. You can't do much, except make most things revealed source by law, so you can see where other manufacturers are trying to copy your stuff (yes, this is new law proposal to help an of bkem area).

Helpful information, not opinion: the action filed by Apple is called a petition for inter partes review (IPR), which is a procedural creature of U.S. patent law and is conducted at the U.S. patent and trademark office, not in a court of law. In other words, the IPR is not a lawsuit, but rather an administrative proceeding, the ultimate outcome of which could be the cancellation of one or more patent claims of a patent at issue on specific grounds.

Apple filed a petition in May, essentially asking the U.S. patent office to institute the IPR. It remains to be seen whether the governing body within the office, called the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, will grant Apple's petition. If it does, then the ensuing proceeding looks like, but is not, a lawsuit. The distinction is likely lost on the lay public, but one result (as I noted above) surely would not. It is not uncommon, though I don't know if this occurred here, for a third party (e.g., Apple) to attempt institution of an IPR when sued for patent infringement in a court of law. It can be a quick sucker punch, sometimes to devastating effect, before having to roll out the heavy artillery in a lawsuit.

If you're suffering from insomnia, you can read more about it here: https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/appealing-patent-decisions/trials/inter-partes-review

- Apple makes ProRes RAW
- Apple probably offer ProRes RAW to other companies to implement it to their cameras.
- Apple waits for deals and profits...
- Apple waits for deals and profits...
- Apple waits for deals and profits...
- One year later (or so) Apple probably get response from all those companies that RED keeps a patent and if they will use ProRes RAW in their cameras, RED will sue them all as they sue earlier many other companies.
- Apple also may want to use compressed raw onto the next iPhones
- Atomos pays to RED for license to use ProRes RAW (shame)
- Blackmagic stop support compressed DNG in their cameras and makes BRAW to avoid sue with RED and stay outside this crazy mess.
- Jinni Tech investigates REDs patent may be not valid, REDmags appears 30x overpriced and mostly done with consumer level internal parts and use common SATA interface. Also RED's claims about custom firmware and "made in the USA" statements appears false.
- Apple starts sue RED probably because Apple wants to deliver ProRes RAW without any limits.

to be continued...

A lot of what I'm reading seems to be implying that Apple is trying to invalidate the REDCODE RAW patent, with people assuming that it'll then become available to all. My understanding was that the RED patent was for any RAW compression performed in-camera. It's not about their proprietary RAW format.

It's the latter that should be invalidated. RAW compression has been known and done for decades in stills photography and is a concept known before RED applied for their patent. The fact that RED applied that to video files should be irrelevant, especially as the likes of CDNG is nothing more than individual DNG files ie a bunch of still images.

It's about compressing RAW and not only in camera, but any device attached to it as well (through cable), so any recorder.

RED should be never granted such a broad patent. There was nothing inventive there. Patents are usually for something very specific, special and precise, not broad like encoding RAW itself.

Claiming it against video framerates is totally relevant, as there is nothing innovative about compressing it as a sequence of timed frames rather than frames, as a lot of image compression codecs, or in Bayer, or above a resolution, or compression rate, or etc etc etc.

Helpful information, not opinion: the action filed by Apple is called a petition for inter partes review (IPR), which is a procedural creature of U.S. patent law and is conducted at the U.S. patent and trademark office, not in a court of law. In other words, the IPR is not a lawsuit, but rather an administrative proceeding, the ultimate outcome of which could be the cancellation of one or more patent claims of a patent at issue on specific grounds.

Apple filed a petition in May, essentially asking the U.S. patent office to institute the IPR. It remains to be seen whether the governing body within the office, called the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, will grant Apple's petition. If it does, then the ensuing proceeding looks like, but is not, a lawsuit. The distinction is likely lost on the lay public, but one result (as I noted above) surely would not. It is not uncommon, though I don't know if this occurred here, for a third party (e.g., Apple) to attempt institution of an IPR when sued for patent infringement in a court of law. It can be a quick sucker punch, sometimes to devastating effect, before having to roll out the heavy artillery in a lawsuit.

If you're suffering from insomnia, you can read more about it here: https://www.uspto.gov/patents-application-process/appealing-patent-decisions/trials/inter-partes-review

I gathered that. But after it is proven, then. I actually have a couple of personal cases where people exposed to my work seemed to elicitatly have then applied a leading technology patent relevant to it. Neither case were these people doing this before being exposed to my work. One or so are top world wide used technology. But, it was too much to challenge.

This thread will most likely get removed, I think BMD wants to steer clear of all this controversy.

Not really. Have some guts man to fight. Too many are gutless and passive these days.

Good to know Grant has some friends high up at Apple.

Add some honey to a bite and we're in for a sweet time when cdng returns and braw on the P4K/P6K....

Mate, I hope they give us cineform raw instead, or JPEG xs Bayer mode. You can license the cineform raw for $20. Would have been much better.

Add some honey to a bite and we're in for a sweet time when cdng returns and braw on the P4K/P6K....

It won’t.

Do the math on data rates for cDNG @ 6k. Try and find media that can do those numbers.

Plus

bRAW is wildly more successful than cDNG has been in terms of user acceptance.

JB

Of course RED might get cold feet and decide to do a deal with Apple and try to retain their patents if possible. If that happens, it's all likely back to square one for everyone else. If that matters.

If I had to guess, I’d say RED triggered this by asking Apple for a license fee for ProRes RAW. And Apples response was to challenge the original patent/s.

I’m confused though because doesn’t DJI more directly infringe REDs patent with the X7 recording ProRes RAW ?

https://www.dji.com/mobile/newsroom/new ... prores-raw

JB

DJI may have signed some form of licensing agreement with RED.

But

It would be with Apple for ProRes RAW ? Not DJI. I’m guessing.

And you definitely pay Apple to use ProRes if you make cameras. And they’re also very strict about how implement it in hardware.

JB

Well Appel and DJI have been walking in the park hand by hand for some time, could be that they have the ability to make a co-found license agreement. More or less, what Appel get so do DJI.

This it not just an Apple matter but for every product owner who want to be able to do record compressed RAW to internal storage.
Dji is charging their customers quite a lot for the cDNG and PRRaw licenses. How much is overhead and how much goes to covered RED patents I have no idea of.

But I believe everyone - but RED - are on Apples side in this demand.

This it not just an Apple matter but for every product owner who want to be able to do record compressed RAW to internal storage.
Dji is charging their customers quite a lot for the cDNG and PRRaw licenses. How much is overhead and how much goes to covered RED patents I have no idea of.

But I believe everyone - but RED - are on Apples side in this demand.

I'm sure apple just want to do the same thing and protect their own licensing that they've enjoyed for a long time.....Prore$

It's not free to have ProRes recording in devices. Just like with RED you're paying for that as well.

They're just arguing about who gets to present the tab to us as the end user.

Though if they invalidate the RED patent, it does mean others are free to develop directly competing codecs.

JB

- Blackmagic stop support compressed DNG in their cameras and makes BRAW to avoid sue with RED and stay outside this crazy mess.
-

This just isn't true, Blackmagic are still selling cameras with cDNG - the Ursa Broadcast for example.

This it not just an Apple matter but for every product owner who want to be able to do record compressed RAW to internal storage.
Dji is charging their customers quite a lot for the cDNG and PRRaw licenses. How much is overhead and how much goes to covered RED patents I have no idea of.

But I believe everyone - but RED - are on Apples side in this demand.

I'm sure apple just want to do the same thing and protect their own licensing that they've enjoyed for a long time.....Prore$

It's not free to have ProRes recording in devices. Just like with RED you're paying for that as well.

They're just arguing about who gets to present the tab to us as the end user.

Though if they invalidate the RED patent, it does mean others are free to develop directly competing codecs.

JB

ProRes is an Apple RGB codec and they can charge license fees for that, AFAIK they can't charge license fees for other RGB codecs like DNx or Cineform.

RED can not only charge license fees for REDCODE, but for all compressed RAW formats that fit within their US patent, that is a big difference.

In my opinion RED is not to blame(they make use of the system), the blame should go to the US goverment with their "pay us, or we nuke you, bullying the rest of the world" attitude.

DJI may have signed some form of licensing agreement with RED.

But

It would be with Apple for ProRes RAW ? Not DJI. I’m guessing.

And you definitely pay Apple to use ProRes if you make cameras. And they’re also very strict about how implement it in hardware.

JB

There have been posts from people within camera development who says there are no royalty fees using ProRes in cameras although strict guidelines around it.

This it not just an Apple matter but for every product owner who want to be able to do record compressed RAW to internal storage.
Dji is charging their customers quite a lot for the cDNG and PRRaw licenses. How much is overhead and how much goes to covered RED patents I have no idea of.

But I believe everyone - but RED - are on Apples side in this demand.

I'm sure apple just want to do the same thing and protect their own licensing that they've enjoyed for a long time.....Prore$

It's not free to have ProRes recording in devices. Just like with RED you're paying for that as well.

They're just arguing about who gets to present the tab to us as the end user.

Though if they invalidate the RED patent, it does mean others are free to develop directly competing codecs.

JB

It's similar but not the same as there is not much patented in ProRes. With RED even if you have own RAW compressed format you still have to pay due to patent. Not exactly the same.

I'm sure apple just want to do the same thing and protect their own licensing that they've enjoyed for a long time.....Prore$

That is only partially true.

Apple wants to make money off of licensing without stifling innovation or the marketplace. If they choke too hard, they'll kill the customers and their revenue stream with it.

On the other hand RED used the licensing as a weapon to block their competition. Everyone is coming out with cheap, high performance cameras that have film like quality, when matched with near lossless encoding. RED can see their days are numbered.
In a last desperate attempt to stave off the competition, RED turned to the lawyers. They had non disclosure agreements with everybody they sued to keep them quiet about their nefarious activities lest the peasants rise up in revolt. This backfired because BMD hunkered down and rolled their own codec. This might even lead them to dumping prores altogether if the licensing does not protect them from this kind of attack.

Apple sees that this situation is a threat to their entire licensing business, and decided to put a stop to it. Apple makes more off of licensing than RED will make in the entire history of its company.

You will probably see Prores RAW on BMD cameras, but Apple with have to do some fancy footwork to assure full legal immunity, and users will really have to lobby pretty hard for it here on the forums.

BRAW is not impacted because it is not a true RAW format. It may be a very good video codec or hybrid of some sort, but it is not actually RAW.

Or maybe BRAW has advertised itself as such just to avoid any litigation.
To me BRAW is as much RAW as r3d is.

- Blackmagic stop support compressed DNG in their cameras and makes BRAW to avoid sue with RED and stay outside this crazy mess.
-

This just isn't true, Blackmagic are still selling cameras with cDNG - the Ursa Broadcast for example.

The Ursa Broadcast Camera only records CDNG Raw in (Broadcast) 1080i mode, not (Cine) 1080p mode, used by Cine Cameras.*. This is incorrect, it is the Avid DNXHD Codec that is limited to interlace. CDNG is available on the Broadcast camera in all resolution settings, including progressive.

Red obviously does not see the older Cameras, and Broadcast or Micro Cameras as a threat, only the Ursa Mini Pro and perhaps the new Pocket 4/6K Cameras. If the older cameras were seen as a threat to Red, they would have jumped on BMD sooner.
Cheers

Of course RED might get cold feet and decide to do a deal with Apple and try to retain their patents if possible. If that happens, it's all likely back to square one for everyone else. If that matters.

Could Apple be sued for that? They certainly have the money to afford to challenge it rather than go along. If they believe it's wrong, they would have to be of the mind wherever it hurts the industry to go along with it.

I also don't think that cdng is the best solution to go to, but it is naive people who are accepting the current solution, and it needs refinement, such as a better base codec as farvas we know, and a true Bayer mode, it would be as good as Red or better.

I wonder if somebody could do a braw like version of prores, with metadata features per frame, that normal software accepts and processes as prores for handoffs, with 16 bit rec2020 mode and an updated codec software could pick up. That would be handy, call it Braw handoff.

- Blackmagic stop support compressed DNG in their cameras and makes BRAW to avoid sue with RED and stay outside this crazy mess.
-

This just isn't true, Blackmagic are still selling cameras with cDNG - the Ursa Broadcast for example.

The Ursa Broadcast Camera only records CDNG Raw in (Broadcast) 1080i mode, not (Cine) 1080p mode, used by Cine Cameras. Red obviously does not see this normthe Micro Camera as a threat, only Ursa Mini Pro and perhaps the new Pocket 4/6K Cameras. If the older cameras were seen as a threat to Red, they would have jumped on BMD sooner.
Cheers

Denny you must have a different version of the Broadcast camera to mine.
My Ursa Broadcast records in 4K UHD in cDNG, are you getting confused with DNXHD which only records at 1080p and 1080i in the Broadcast? Page 35 of the manual sets out recording times for the different versions of cDNG in UHD.

I stand corrected David, you are correct, I was getting the two mixed up. I could not check, as I have recently sold my Ursa Broadcast Camera.
Cheers

The arrogance of these egoistic men pushing these lawsuit is hilarious.....