Rights to JPEG Patent Questioned


Internet News:Compression Labs is suing 31 of the biggest names in tech for their use of patented JPEG technology.

Short for "Joint Photographic Experts Group," JPEG is a lossy compression (define) technique for color images and widely used for displaying photographs and graphics on Web sites.

The Austin, Tex.-based video technology developer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Forgent Networks (Quote, Chart), a vendor of scheduling software -- and IP. After two years of fruitless negotiations, Compression Labs told manufacturers this week it's time to pay up.

Its United States Patent No. 4,698,672 covers the digital still image compression used in the JPEG file format, and the company has been going after an A-list of companies that make digital cameras, printers, scanners, PDAs, cell phones and software that let users save as JPEG.