A new lawsuit, filed by representatives for cinema camera manufacturer RED, accuses Nikon of illegally using its patented data compression technology in its Nikon Z9 full-frame mirrorless camera.
According to the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the plaintiff, Red.com, LLC (RED), is accusing the defendant, Nikon Corporation (Nikon), of patent infringement. Specifically, RED is accusing Nikon of knowingly using technology described in RED’s patents pertaining to ‘highly compress[ed] video data in a visually lossless manner’ in its Nikon’s Z series mirrorless cameras, ‘such as the “Nikon Z9 with Firmware 2.0.”’
Just nice, only in shitty capitalism parasites can live happily for years instead of being in jail.
Nikon admits 'it knew about RED’s prior lawsuits involving one or more of the Asserted Patents, including Red.com, LLC v. Kinefinity, Inc., 8-21-cv- 00041 (C.D. Cal.); Red.com, Inc. v. Sony Corporation of America et al., 2-16-cv- 00937 (E.D. Tex.); Red.com, Inc. v. Nokia USA Inc. et al., 8-16-cv-00594 (C.D. Cal.); and Red.com, Inc. v. Sony Corporation of America et al., 3-13-cv-00334 (S.D. Cal.). Nikon further admits that it has known of the Asserted Patents at least as of the date of the service of the Complaint.'
Continuing, Nikon says, 'Nikon denies that RED is entitled to any relief in this action and asks the Court to deny any of the relief requested by RED in its Complaint […] RED’s claims for alleged patent infringement fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted…''
Nikon claims in its answer to RED's suit that RED isn't entitled to injunctive relief because no injury has been established. Nikon continues to say that an injunction would serve the 'public interest.' Nikon also asks the court to enter judgment in its favor and against RED as follows: 'That RED takes nothing and is denied any relief whatsoever; That RED’s claims against Nikon be dismissed in their entirety and with prejudice; That Nikon be awarded the costs incurred in connection with this action…'
Interestingly, Nikon is taking what appears to be a different approach to its rebuttal to the lawsuit, suggesting that RED's patents shouldn't be enforcable. Specifically, Nikon is arguing that because RED had shown off and taken pre-orders for cameras using its compressed Raw technology before applying for one of its key patents it's claiming Nikon infringed upon, RED's claim to the technology is not valid since patents must be applied for before information is made public.
Very aggressive Nikon, I like
Dont be too eager, they will settle it out of courts before red patents are nulified. Nikon just wants her piece of the cake.
Nikon is bigger than RED and have yeeears of experience with patents and stuff . Thy still make advance photolithography machines not UV but still advanced. They have the horse power to fuck RED if they want to.
Then the patent is nulified and every other manufacturer launch a product with this feature built in... i really want to believe that they will fuck red, but lets see what happens....
For those who need a reminder, the RED’s lawsuit focuses on Nikon’s flagship, which is the Z9, which can shoot compressed raw internally (ProRes RAW and N-RAW).
The jury trial is set for January 23, 2024.
One year from today.
https://ymcinema.com/2022/12/08/red-vs-nikon-jury-trial-is-set-for-january-2024/
"Last day to amend under Rule 15 November 2022;
Technology tutorial hearing – April 2023;
Markman hearing (examination of evidence) – May 2023;
Last day to hear motions to amend pleadings/add parties – May 2023;
Non-expert discovery cutoff – August 2023;
Expert discovery cutoff – October 2023;
Last day to mediate – December 2023;
Final pretrial conference and MIL hearing – January 2024;
And finally, the Jury trial – January 23, 2024."
How is Arri able to record internal Arri raw ?
Arri raw is uncompressed
The red patent is basically for an idea of internal >2K res, >23 fps, compressed non-debayered data.
The idea was at the time when most did HD only for a 4K 24 FPS non-debayered data stream with mild lossy compression.
The compression itself is (was) a licensed wavelet compression. This was later changed to a DCT compression (Discrete Cosinus Transform) scheme similar to JPEG/MPEG with the release of the RED KOMODO 6K. (Patents lasts for 20 years.)
There are further RED patents regarding tweaks etc to this basic scheme which uses pre-emphasis and de-emphasis on the bayer data such that subtler nuances survives the compression better.
No-compression RAW is not covered by the patent(s) as I understand it. Also, a partial de-bayer of the RGB data might avoid the patent as well (like BRAW?).
How the f*ck did RED manage to patent other peoples ideas?
Why have none been able to invalidate the patent?
And best of luck to Nikon...
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