PT Forgent Networks said Friday it sued 31 major hardware and software vendors, including Dell and Apple Computers, for allegedly infringing on its claim to an algorithm used in the popular JPEG picture file format. If the suits are successful, they could lead to an increase in prices for tools and software used to create and modify images — or even lead the industry to abandon the JPEG format altogether. In use since the mid-1980s, the JPEG, or Joint Photographic Experts Group, format has become the de facto standard for sharing photo-quality images electronically. Although the most widely used version of the format is in the public domain, Forgent said it believes that a 17-year-old patent it acquired through the purchase of Compression Labs in 1997 can be applied to a specific algorithm in the format.
Defendants in the lawsuit include some of the biggest names in the computing industry, from Apple and IBM to Kodak and Xerox — all of which use JPEG in their products. Forgent contacted each of the companies over the past year and offered them the chance to license the technology, said Forgent spokesman Michael Noonan. But none accepted, he said. “These companies have been using our patent technology in a wide variety of products for some time, and despite the ongoing negotiations that we’ve had with these companies to license the technology, they haven’t done so,” said Noonan. “So we were forced to litigate.”
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