Red is back on the litigation warpath

Precedent is just a prior example case to point to, and it works both ways. Remember, this time it is Red suing Nikon, not the other way around. It's an uphill battle for Nikon to win. Nikon is not challenging Red's patent legitimacy as Apple had tried to do.

You do not know what their defence will be yet.

What I'm saying is that Nikon is a defendant. The patent doesn't vacate with a victory.

They will only win if they discredit the patent. Then the rest will follow because others can take the same approach.

You do not know what their defense will be.

You do not know what their defense will be.

That is exactly what I said before. Neither do you. We will all have to wait. However if they win my argument will hold. Others will adopt the same approach.

You do not understand. The legitimacy of the patent is not on trial, Nikon is.

What's stopping any other company from putting Jpeg 2000 in a Quicktime container and changing the header? Red sues them and can't they just easily prove the patent invalid?

Either way, the court case is still one year away, January 2024, so we're in for a long wait. In the meantime, Red is awarded new patents left and right.

What's stopping any other company from putting Jpeg 2000 in a Quicktime container and changing the header? Red sues them and can't they just easily prove the patent invalid?

No. You can file an action to invalidate the patent but you can't use it as a defense when the plaintiff has filed an action against you.

You can file an action to invalidate a law against burning trash in your yard but you can't use it as a defense if you've already been charged with burning trash in your yard under an existing law. Your defense would have to be that you were not breaking the law against burning trash, either because you were not or you were being mistaken for someone else that was. You cannot argue that you are innocent because the existing law was not valid. If before you burned trash you had successfully petitioned to invalidate the law there would be no basis for a charge against you.

Apple was not charged with violating Red's patent. They were attempting to invalidate the existing patent. Had they been successful, Red would have no basis for suing Nikon.

Apple sought to test the patent.

For some reason they announced and launched a RAW codec without thinking to license it first. I’m guess this is because Atomos talked them into it.

Then they realised that a raw codec that can’t be used in-camera is a kind of strange product.

So they tested the patent and therefore they instigated the case seeking to overturn it.

Nikon just made a camera that has two flavours of internal raw and let RED chase them. Which they have done.

JB

Another example:
Red sues Nikon for patent infringement. Nikon argues that Red's patent is invalid. A jury agrees. No money is awarded to Red. A precedent was set that Red's patent may be inviable. Later, Red sues Fuji for patent infringement. Fuji argues that Red's patent was invalidated from the precedent of Nikon's win earlier. The jury disagrees and awards Red damages.

Another example:
Red sues Nikon for patent infringement. Nikon argues that Red's patent is invalid. A jury agrees. No money is awarded to Red. A precedent was set that Red's patent may be inviable. Later, Red sues Fuji for patent infringement. Fuji argues that Red's patent was invalidated from the precedent of Nikon's win earlier. The jury disagrees and awards Red damages.

And that is why the US legal system and Patent Office is held in such low reguard in the world (and often ignored).
All Nikon, Fuji, Cannon, Panazonic etc have to do is all decide to ignore REDs patent globally.
If the US courts back Red then all those companys carry on but just pull out of the US.
The US is a large but not indispensable market.

Well, they largely pulled out of Russia, so this might not be a good time.

The US is a large but not indispensable market.

Whilst I agree with you, re the US Patent Office, I'm afraid it would be foolhardy of any manufacturer to ignore the US market, since it's largeness represent some 31% of the total world economy and has the most developed media production business anywhere.

In a few years, nobody will even care about Red and their patent. It has pushed development.

Without that patent having to be avoided, there would probably be no BRAW, which is an excellent codec.
Or maybe Sony, Canon et al. would never have given us compressed 10 bit 4:2:2 log recording in the upper tier of amateur devices, which is reasonably good. So, forget Red, if they don’t bring something really creative to the battle. Just living from license fees will not keep them afloat.

A new JinnTech video is up.

TD;LR
RedCode is a Jpeg 2000 image in a QuickTime container renamed to .R3D

The facts presented in JinnTech's forensic research should be enough reason to switch from RED.
I am not a RED user. But this kind of cheating would be reason enough for me, not buying anything from this brand.

[All Nikon, Fuji, Cannon, Panazonic etc have to do is all decide to ignore REDs patent globally.
If the US courts back Red then all those companys carry on but just pull out of the US.
The US is a large but not indispensable market.

You need to go back to law school. There's something called the "Patent Cooperation Treaty", which has 157 signatories (at last check). This includes the U.S. and all of Europe. In effect, they agree to honor each other's patents, with a duly filed international application. Also the "Paris Convention".

Even if that weren't the case, these companies are effectively obliged to comply with U.S. law. The U.S. market is too big to ignore. Companies can't afford to sustain two different product lines for the same product.

You need to go back to law school. There's something called the "Patent Cooperation Treaty", which has 157 signatories (at last check). This includes the U.S. and all of Europe. In effect, they agree to honor each other's patents, with a duly filed international application. Also the "Paris Convention".

Even if that weren't the case, these companies are effectively obliged to comply with U.S. law. The U.S. market is too big to ignore. Companies can't afford to sustain two different product lines for the same product.

And likewise the US has to comply with EU, Chinese, Russian and other law? The RED patent would not hold water in any other area.

The U.S. has the same legal obligations to honor foreign patents as all the other signatories to the treaty -- EU, Chinese, Russian, whatever. Whether the Red patent would have been granted in other jurisdictions is beside the point. Anyone challenging it would have to do so in an American court, assuming there was a successful international application under the treaty.

[All Nikon, Fuji, Cannon, Panazonic etc have to do is all decide to ignore REDs patent globally.
If the US courts back Red then all those companys carry on but just pull out of the US.
The US is a large but not indispensable market.

You need to go back to law school. There's something called the "Patent Cooperation Treaty", which has 157 signatories (at last check). This includes the U.S. and all of Europe. In effect, they agree to honor each other's patents, with a duly filed international application. Also the "Paris Convention".

Even if that weren't the case, these companies are effectively obliged to comply with U.S. law. The U.S. market is too big to ignore. Companies can't afford to sustain two different product lines for the same product.

But the company still has to apply for patent coverage in these countries and has 12 months to do so. If not then the patent is not valid in any country they have not applied for patent coverage. At least that was the way it was when I was a patent examiner in the 1960's. Haven't read the whole document but see that the 12 month rule is still in there. Essentially the application date is maintained in each country for which there is an application. But the application can still be challenged. So yes you could have a situation where the patent is only valid in the US.

[All Nikon, Fuji, Cannon, Panazonic etc have to do is all decide to ignore REDs patent globally.
If the US courts back Red then all those companys carry on but just pull out of the US.
The US is a large but not indispensable market.

You need to go back to law school. There's something called the "Patent Cooperation Treaty", which has 157 signatories (at last check). This includes the U.S. and all of Europe. In effect, they agree to honor each other's patents, with a duly filed international application. Also the "Paris Convention".

Even if that weren't the case, these companies are effectively obliged to comply with U.S. law. The U.S. market is too big to ignore. Companies can't afford to sustain two different product lines for the same product.

But the company still has to apply for patent coverage in these countries and has 12 months to do so. If not then the patent is not valid in any country they have not applied for patent coverage. At least that was the way it was when I was a patent examiner in the 1960's. Haven't read the whole document but see that the 12 month rule is still in there. Essentially the application date is maintained in each country for which there is an application. But the application can still be challenged. So yes you could have a situation where the patent is only valid in the US.

Thanks. I didn't think I needed to "go back to law school"

This Treaty dates to the 70s, not the 60s, but it really doesn't matter. This idea that manufacturers can simply ignore American patents is not realistic if they expect to sell their product lines in the U.S. How many cameras with compressed raw, in nominal violation of Red's patent, are sold in Europe or elsewhere?

And the show has moved on. cDNG and the like were never practical anyway.

This Treaty dates to the 70s, not the 60s, but it really doesn't matter. This idea that manufacturers can simply ignore American patents is not realistic if they expect to sell their product lines in the U.S. How many cameras with compressed raw, in nominal violation of Red's patent, are sold in Europe or elsewhere?

And the show has moved on. cDNG and the like were never practical anyway.

You are correct in saying manufacturers have to recognize US patents to sell in the US. But just because you have a US patent does not mean you have patent coverage worldwide. It is just in the US unless you apply for international coverage. Rule 33 in the current specs still specify prior art anywhere in the world has to be met. Red would fail this test.

Yes, it's true that according to the patent tribunal found here in the forum, Red "fails" that test. But unfortunately the U.S. patent office says otherwise and in the case Apple and others, U.S. courts affirmed that judgment.

Whatever the requirements of the Treaty, surely Red sought protection abroad? What was the result?

I have no idea what coverage RED has internationally as they do not mention on their WEB site.

Whatever the requirements of the Treaty, surely Red sought protection abroad? What was the result?

Apparently they haven't There is another similar case with audio recorders that a US company has a patent that would not stack up anywhere else in the world (except China or N/Korea if it was one of their companies) and they haven't tried to get protection. In that case all the non-US companies make kit that would infrined the US patent and sell it everywhere except in the US. They do a crippled version for the US. Though many from the US apprently drive into canada to buy the non-crippled ones. I can't recall if the systems sold in the USA could be re-flashed to international standards.

If in fact they didn't seek patent protection outside the U.S., what does say? They knew that a lock on the U.S. market was enough to assert their rights world-wide for these mass-market products.

But, meanwhile, the rest of the market has other and more workable alternatives, like braw. At the other end, there's still Arriraw when anyone gets the 3 picture deal, if Hollywood still offers 3 picture deals.

Whatever the requirements of the Treaty, surely Red sought protection abroad? What was the result?

If you click the links in the right column under "Worldwide Applications" you can get a sense of their applications and status.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8174560B2/en

If you click the links in the right column under "Worldwide Applications" you can get a sense of their applications and status.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8174560B2/en

And that shows they were clearly granted a patent in the EU in 2014.

If you click the links in the right column under "Worldwide Applications" you can get a sense of their applications and status.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US8174560B2/en

And that shows they were clearly granted a patent in the EU in 2014.

It clearly shows trhat in 2014 the ONLY places they were petitioning were the US and it is still ongoing. I can't see ANY application to the EU there.

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2145330B1/en

https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2145330B1/en

Not a Patent Lawyer are you?

What it says is
"Application number: EP08745686.9A Filing date: 2008-04-11 Legal status: Active"
It also says " 2028-04-11 Anticipated expiration"

If or the Korean one it would say
" Application number: KR1020147021892A Filing date: 2008-04-11 Legal status: IP Right Grant"

The other one filed in the EU the same year says:
"Application EP20140177071 events Priority claimed from US91119607P 2008-04-11
Application filed by Red com LLC 2013-02-12
First worldwide family litigation filed 2014-10-22
Publication of EP2793219A1 Status Pending"


So RED has no granted Patents in the EU The EU Patent office tends to hold more authority than the US one.

Not a Patent Lawyer are you?

I never said I was Chris, since it not my job, but neither are you clearly: 2014-07-16
Application granted

I don't know why you're so actioned by this, seemingly personally, but I'm not Red, therefore being rude does not help your argument.

So RED has no granted Patents in the EU The EU Patent office tends to hold more authority than the US one.

Screen Shot 2023-01-14 at 11.53.49 AM.png (89.8 KiB) Viewed 5060 times

This is the European Patent, "EP" that connects back to the '560' patent that Apple challenged and that RED I believe uses to initiate litigation. It says active.

'Active' means it's granted and valid (or published) until it's abandoned' or expired. I'm not a patent lawyer either, but I do unfortunately pay patent lawyers and they generally advise to add incremental updates to existing patents to extend their life. In 2014 RED submitted a new application with probably minor changes. There are also maintenance fees too, if not paid the patent will become abandoned.

What's stopping any other company from putting Jpeg 2000 in a Quicktime container and changing the header? Red sues them and can't they just easily prove the patent invalid?

I believe he's saying that in earlier firmware in ZCAM the ZRAW was essentially doing just that. It was compressed RAW. Later it was changed to: "ZRAW (partial debayer)" in their advertising. There's also no way to reverse firmware versions in the later firmware.

What's stopping any other company from putting Jpeg 2000 in a Quicktime container and changing the header? Red sues them and can't they just easily prove the patent invalid?

Use of Jpeg2000 or QT container is not what is patented. RED basically patented an idea of RAW compression (with some pre-processing) even if it was known/used way before they done it and this is the problem.
They filed another patent recently which even further extends previous patent into all codec types, sensor types, all devices (including mobile phones), etc. This is pure CRAP.
This almost like getting patent for any compression for video data- try achieving this today
Companies get patents for specific math inside codecs, some novel, clever pre-processing etc. No one tries to patent compression idea itself. If RED at least was first with RAW compression- no one heard, talked about it and boom- they introduced it. Maybe this would make some sense, but this is FAAAAAAR from what they've done. As they done NOTHING new or inventive.

Patent should be about very specific new/unique "process/way of doing something".
In case of RED it could be a way of pre-processing RAW data before compression (which a lot of their patent is about), but even this was not new (Cineform and others used very similar methods). Whole RED patent story is pathetic and shows how much US patenting office is worth. Fact that RED is bunch of lawyers adds another layer. You don't have to invent anything- you just need to know how to trick government office to believe you did
RED also made some mistakes when it comes to things which can or can't happen before you apply for a patent (selling publicly products which use same technology), but looks like no one yet used this properly against RED.

RED did not just add some custom header- current files are encrypted, so you can't decode them without use of their SDK. This is the only company which does it this way! It locks you from writing better debayer, making hardware card etc. This is all done to have full control over ability to process RED files for different reasons including financial (sell of way overpriced Jpeg2000 decoders).

No long time ago (well - a year) they published improved debayering in their SDK. RED fanboys went crazy about it as results were much better. Problem is that they were better not because new method was great (it's just similar to Arri, BM own one etc.), but because old method was so poor. Thing is that only RED has access to RAW pixels, so only they could make it better and present like something "out of this world". This is how they operate. They make big shoot about nothing special. I think now people realised it, but for many years about all blindly believed them. Believed that RED is not Jpeg2000 based (but something unique out of this world), that their recording technology is a result of 100MLN$ and hours of R&D (where in reality it's just use of selected of the shelve disks), etc, etc.
They deserve to be mentioned for been 'brave' and push for something new (4K), when other/big companies had very 'slow' approach to it. Rest is done in very bad way which included threatening people with court, banning from their forum etc.

RED also made some mistakes when it comes to things which can or can't happen before you apply for a patent (selling publicly products which use same technology), but looks like no one yet used this properly against RED.

Watch the Jinni-Tech video. That is precicely what they call out.

Yes, but as far as JinnyTech goes he did not tried to invalidate their patent, but fight against RED claims against him. Different case. He has done far better job than Apple/Sony put together.

Yes, but as far as JinnyTech goes he did not tried to invalidate their patent, but fight against RED claims against him. Different case. He has done far better job than Apple/Sony put together.

He actually tried to but when Red realized they what he was doing they killed the company (Red.com, LLC) and started a new company called under the name Red Digital Cinema Camera Company LLC.

Yes, but as far as JinnyTech goes he did not tried to invalidate their patent, but fight against RED claims against him. Different case. He has done far better job than Apple/Sony put together.

He actually tried to but when Red realized they what he was doing they killed the company (Red.com, LLC) and started a new company called under the name Red Digital Cinema Camera Company LLC.

And moved it to Paradise, An unincorperated part of Las Vegas (the bit where the casinos are)....

Here's a thought...

Could they indict the individual(s) that handled the original RED patent in the US patent office?

I think most agree that the patent should have never been given. I'd be very interested in how many people actually worked on it, how thoroughly they checked and what knowledge they even had of codecs/cameras. I'd especially be interested if they (or maybe it was just a single person?) looked into Cineform or the SI-2K camera at that time because I assume they didn't.

Interesting.

This is what Jinni Tech replied in one if the comments on YT:

"Red settled out of the court with Sony, Apple only asked the patent office (not the court) to review the patent with their main argument being Red didn't reduce the camera to practice in time that gives priority to another patent that was filed 2 days later than Red's. All Red had to do was to produce some pics and eye witnesses (a couple of company's staff);that there was a prototype by a certain date.
This patent was never actually tested in any court"

and

"If Red doesn't settle, I'd say any half decent jury and half decent judge will invalidate the patent that is gotten by these shenanigans.
Red had the legal duty to disclose to the USPTO any sales attempts and they didn't, that is singlehandedly sufficient to bring it down"

Red had the legal duty to disclose to the USPTO any sales attempts and they didn't, that is single handedly sufficient to bring it down

The reason why you have a grace period that is before the patent application is to market test the product and see if there is interest. It's very expensive to get a patent, then international patents, so it makes sense to see if the product will sell first.

All Red had to do was to produce some pics and eye witnesses (a couple of company's staff);that there was a prototype by a certain date.

I think that was good evidence to support their priority date to the early spring of 2007 which they showed in their case against Apple.

If in fact they didn't seek patent protection outside the U.S., what does say? They knew that a lock on the U.S. market was enough to assert their rights world-wide for these mass-market products.

But, meanwhile, the rest of the market has other and more workable alternatives, like braw. At the other end, there's still Arriraw when anyone gets the 3 picture deal, if Hollywood still offers 3 picture deals.

ArriRaw is uncompressed.

Could they indict the individual(s) that handled the original RED patent in the US patent office?

I think most agree that the patent should have never been given. I'd be very interested in how many people actually worked on it, how thoroughly they checked and what knowledge they even had of codecs/cameras. I'd especially be interested if they (or maybe it was just a single person?) looked into Cineform or the SI-2K camera at that time because I assume they didn't.

The SI-2K and Cineform are cited in the RED patent.

If Cineform RAW existed prior to REDCODE and was working in public at NAB 2006 then I would think RED wouldn't able to claim dominion over all compressed raw in camera. RED makes the point of claiming 'visually lossless" for the patent. AND they filed for a patent a few days earlier! Maybe it's just some small slight detail that gave them the victory?

It does appear that the Silicon Imaging camera and Cineform RAW were working well before the RED ONE. It was a working prototype on view at NAB 2006? The RED ONE (or some version of it) was in testing in March - April 2007.

From GoPro/CineForm Insider:
http://cineform.blogspot.com/2006/04/ci ... oject.html

"Now, having met one the Silicon Imaging team, the project really took form after NAB 2005, this would be the camera to launch a better filmmaker workflow. The development continued on both ends (CineForm & SI) over the last year, preparing for a full functional product to be shown at NAB 2006. The software is ready - Prospect HD has just been upgraded to support the CineForm RAW workflow, and the camera is ready for orders, shipping in only a few months."

Your small detail may be in the fact that RED patent is about 2K+ and SI-2K is up to 2K
There must be a reason why patent keeps talking about 2K+.
But how inventive is fact that you done the same as others just at higher resolution?
It's the same as eg. BM patenting 12K camera itself, so no one else can do 12K or more Good luck with it.

Split your RAW recording into 2K chunks, give software which puts all together later (outside of camera) and you can argue in court that you are doing just 2K recording, so not breaching RED patent. RED patent is clearly about RAW compressing/recording 2K+ in device.

Or write two streams with each one below 24 fps and combine them in post. Would also circumvent the RED pseudo patent.

Exactly - for any stupid "limitation" you can find equally stupid workaround
Same as patent keeps talking about 2K+ resolution it also keeps mentioning 'at least 24fps'. We can actually use those so specific details against RED

RED has new patent granted:
https://patents.google.com/patent/US11503294B2/en
Can't be bothered to read it properly, but looks like it's talking about any RAW compression in any device.
Real joke Who gives them those patents ?

This part of the patent abstract reads like a joke:

The one or more processors can encode the quantized transform coefficients at least by determining a range of multiple ranges in which one transform coefficient is included, determining a value within the range to which the one transform coefficient corresponds, encoding using a first algorithm the range as a range code, and encoding using a second algorithm the value as a value code.