Patent lawsuit...

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Are you suing because someone used an industry standard compression on industry ubiquitous data? Or is there some subtle detail that we're missing. I'm more than happy to see RED defend their IP if it's innovative (such as some new way of prepping data for compression that's non-obvious). I'm not happy to see the simple notion of "compressing an image" which is beyond trivially obvious get locked down in patents.

The DCI spec included JPEG2000 compression for the industry standard compression of cinema images. Bayer pattern is just another image. Patenting the idea of compressing a bayer pattern image sounds as silly to me as patenting making a jpeg of a photo of grass. "No more jpegs of grass! That was our idea!" Not to mention the fact that Cineform RAW was a commercial product before REDCode RAW was even a feature of RED.

 

[Elsie N]

... Bayer pattern is just another image. Patenting the idea of compressing a bayer pattern image sounds as silly to me as patenting making a jpeg of a photo of grass. "No more jpegs of grass! That was our idea!" Not to mention the fact that Cineform RAW was a commercial product before REDCode RAW was even a feature of RED.

Isn't jpeg a compressing of an image like a TIFF or some other format? I'm asking because I thought at one time there was a licensing fee to use JPEG compression. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Isn't jpeg a compressing of an image like a TIFF or some other format? I'm asking because I thought at one time there was a licensing fee to use JPEG compression. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

Pretty sure Jpeg is unencumbered by licensing fees.

Ditto with JPEG2000

It has always been a strong goal of the JPEG committee that its standards should be implementable in their baseline form without payment of royalty and license fees... The up and coming JPEG 2000 standard has been prepared along these lines, and agreement reached with over 20 large organizations holding many patents in this area to allow use of their intellectual property in connection with the standard without payment of license fees or royalties.

DCI Specs which specify JPEG2000 as the standard for digital cinema image compression:

4.1. Introduction Image Compression for Digital Cinema uses data reduction techniques to decrease the size of
the data for economical delivery and storage. The system uses perceptual coding techniques to
achieve an image compression that is visually lossless. It is important to note that image
compression is typically used to ensure meeting transmission bandwidth or media storage
limitations. This results in image quality being dependent on scene content and delivered bit
rate. Digital Cinema image compression is much less dependent upon bandwidth or storage
requirements, thereby making bit rate dependent on desired image quality rather than the
reverse.
4.2. Compression Standard
The compression standard shall be JPEG 2000 (see [ISO/IEC 15444-1]).

http://www.dcimovies.com/archives/spec_v1/DCI_Digital_Cinema_System_Spec_v1.pdf

Applying LOG LUTs prior to compression is also a standard technique for most of video history (see Sony SLOG etc.)

I better go patent compressing depth-maps real quick if simply compressing a specific set of image channels is going to be a problem. I hope, and give RED the benefit of the doubt that they have some specific channel shuffling happening in REDCODE that this lawsuit is about. And not the broader question of "can you compress an image that's 100 pixels wider than previously identically compressed images".

 

[Björn Benckert]

Guys, pretty much everything is filed for patent.

Example, Quantel had the patent for blurring a digital image, they also had the patent for storing an image into a "frame buffer" (back then called bill and ben for those of you that remember the HAL days)... Kind of like a patent for pushing a digital button and image is saved. So during the years companies like adobe and others have paid quite a bit to have the function of saving images.


So this is all common procedures, and I think Jim probably have a pretty long list of people that he had to pay to get the RED ONE, the Epic and scarlet all cleared, So why would he not play the exact same game as everyone else?

Another example a swedish guy named Håkan Lans have patented colored video graphics. As he was the first one to create such, every one else was doing black or duotone...It was kind of obvious back then that computers would show colors sooner than later as there where allready colored TV, but he did it first and filed a patent and actually got Toshiba, IBM and some others to pay him a license fee for every color screen they make... He also claim he invented the computer mouse and is trying to sue people for making devices that can move an arrow on the screen by hand...

 

[Peter Moretti]

...

The DCI spec included JPEG2000 compression for the industry standard compression of cinema images. Bayer pattern is just another image. Patenting the idea of compressing a bayer pattern image sounds as silly to me as patenting making a jpeg of a photo of grass. "No more jpegs of grass! That was our idea!"

You may be making making Red's case for them, LOL! I think the magic relies on the fact that a Bayer pattern is not "just another image." First, the colors repeat in a perfectly predicatable way. Second, a single color almost always contains luminence values for the other two colors. This information alone could be helpful when designing a scheme to compress/decompress a Bayer image. And since you haven't realized that yet after discussing this issue for over a day and having seven years of hindsight, I think that speaks somewhat to what Red has done as being non-obvious.

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Sure, we don't know anything. But we can read the patents and they seem pretty general.

That's why I asked Jim if the plan is to sue anyone who makes a compressed raw video camera, or if it's more specific.

You may be a RED customer first.

I am a filmmaker first.

If RED is trying to patent the idea of a compressed raw video camera in general, then it will hurt filmmaking if they succeed. Simple as that.

So that's why I have asked here for clarification.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

And I am sure there are a lot of folks here who KNOW that, had they been coach or quarterback, they could have ensured a victory for the Forty-niners in the Superbowl. Good luck with that. Read all the patent information you want - I suspect the essence of the matter is beyond the information that you can collect, process, analyze and evaluate. I'm an outsider, you're an outsider - let the people who actually know something do their jobs.

And good luck having Jim lay out his legal and business strategy for you here in the forum.

 

[Scott Brown]

In life you have to protect what's yours - Samsung ripped off Apple and bit the and that fed them. Apple have hit back and while they may not have won every suit, they've made their point clearly.

While I have sometimes been critical of RED, Jim I 100% support you on this....go get 'em )

Meanwhile leave the lawyers to do their stuff and do what you do best, innovate and change the world!

Best wishes

Scott

 

[Peter Moretti]

... Not to mention the fact that Cineform RAW was a commercial product before REDCode RAW was even a feature of RED.

Now this IS the rub, IMHO.

I have said that I remember reading that Red and Cineform had some agreement regarding Redcode. But perhaps it's just that Cineform was listed as prior art in the patent application.

So how is Red's patent differentiated from Cineform RAW? Red claims higher than 2K resolutions. Is that it? Because that seems like pretty soft ground to stand on.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

You may be making making Red's case for them, LOL! I think the magic relies on the fact that a Bayer pattern is not "just another image." First, the colors repeat in a perfectly predicatable way. Second, a single color almost always contains luminence values for the other two colors. This information alone could be helpful when designing a scheme to compress/decompress a Bayer image. And since you haven't realized that yet after discussing this issue for over a day and having seven years of hindsight, I think that speaks somewhat to what Red has done as being non-obvious.

Except they only repeat if you don't simply break up each pixel into a separate channel. Which would be necessary first step to lossy bayer compression. Lots of image compression methods compress each channel separately anyway--after all you can't assume every channel will relate to one another. So if you use runtime compression for instance the alpha channel will be compressed seperately from blue channel which will be compressed separately from the red channel etc. The raw bayer pattern would be too noisy and cause weird artifacts if you didn't split each filter color into its appropriate channel.

Now, if RED is doing something after that on the compression side to improve compression that's non-obvious that's fine. I think a lot of us are just concerned that the concept of "compressing a raw image" is at risk of being mired in patent litigation which would be very bad for the industry.

 

[Peter Majtan]

Dear Jim,
having the best camera in the world made in the US and having so many quality jobs created here is a daring and noble effort.
Japan and China have been hijacking America's inovations and ideas for decades and by sucking the blood of their fellow country men and women through slave like factories were able to dominate the world market.
its time some one stands up to them and we, not as your customer but as the members of the family you so painstakingly created will support you.
please DO tell us what we can do to support your justice seeking endeavor.
thank you

Aside of this current issue with SONY - would you terribly mind to point out how Japan has been hijacking America's innovations and ideas for decades and which slave like factories in Japan are you aware of?!?

Just for the record - I'm 100% behind Jim and RED on this issue. Maybe people do not understand how patents work and how their are categorized and described. RED did not just patent a "video camera" - they have patented a very specific type of device under the category of a "video camera", which features prominently propriety technologies and inventions. This is what has been infringed upon...

Peter

 

[Jeff McCoy]

Good for you Jim and good for RED!

 

[Jon Carr]

Wish you the best of luck Jim, and everyone at RED. No matter what happens. you gotta fight for what is right and what you believe in. Good luck, and keep moving forward.

 

[Sergio Perez]

I'm with Red here. I dont recall seeing them suing Blackmagic, Canon or Arri for Raw related issues. If they are suing Sony they must have their reasons.

I'm all for innovation as well as share of ideas, but not ripoff,s . Looking at the Kineraw camera design makes me sick, for example. And seeing a complete carbon copy of the glidecam 4000 HD + x10 going for 800 USD around Guaghzou makes me feel sorry for the salaries and the jobs of the original creators of the Glidecam- who is a sponsor here. Competition is good, copying is not in my eyes.

 

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

Here is the "patent"

http://www.google.com/patents/US8358357

And the filling date is long after F65 was already shipping

Did anyone from RED actually *look* at citation 58 before including it in the patent?!

http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=44489

"When Mel Gibson announced he was shooting "Apocalypto" in Digital in early summer, Hollywood Jews scrambled to keep up.

All us WN Media people remember last summer when the Jew Studio bosses all came back from that one long weekend and cut all the jobs and deals in Hollywood and Industry wide across the country. For a few years the Digital camera and exhibition world has been ready and just waiting for the Jew Hollywood studio bosses to commit."

(WN = White Nationalist)

The mind does in truth, boggle.

Mike

 

[Mike 'Fireman' Ross]

Oh and yes I've just broken Rule One of the IP business: No-One Except A Patent Lawyer Should Ever Read A Patent!

Mike

 

[Jannard]

I just posted on another thread that Cineform, Silicon Imaging, Dalsa and the Jpeg 2000 standard was cited in our patent as potential prior art. We were granted the patent. And then a comprehensive re-examination was initiated. The patent stands.

RED championed 4K and compressed RAW. We did it starting in 2006. It is curious that 6 years later... it now seems obvious. For the past 6 years, 1080P was "good enough" according to the biggest companies on earth. 4K was just not necessary. Given the Proliferation of 4K panels at CES... apparently now we were right. And others are actually claiming to "have invented 4k". Really?

In 2005 I started RED because the other guys had it wrong. Today, we look smarter than we did seven years ago even though our story has not changed. The only difference is that the other companies seem to want to ignore what we have done. I won't let that happen.

It will soon come to pass that some companies will begin to offer sensor upgrades and try to take credit for the idea. They may even try to use the phrase "Obsolescence obsolete". Of course they will lead you to believe that this is their idea.

Our customers know what is real. We love our customers. And the best news... we know what the next step is..

Jim

 

[Andrew M.]

Not to mention the fact that Cineform RAW was a commercial product before REDCode RAW was even a feature of RED.

Well, RED was the first patenting compressed RAW debayer, it is the fact and no discussion here.

Also SONY openly differentiated itself at that time in all its products, preaching that RGB technique is the only way to go for the future, long after RED patents were filled in.

I will never call RED patents as patenting already existing standard. The only widely used standard in particular by SONY at that time when RED filled its patent, was RGB standard. There was no standard for compressed RAW debayer than and I think there is no standard even now. This technology is far from being widely accepted as a standard. Lets agree on one thing, this technology is in its infancy stage.

YES it is in its infancy and it is the time when one would like to protect this patent vigorously.

I remember hot discussions here on this forum back then who has better vision for the future, RED or Sony.
And then sudden 180 deg change by Sony in its camera technology without even acknowledging the milestone contribution of RED to the change.

Like taking it for granted that someone invested heavily in the development of new technology, brought it to the market, established the new direction in digital cinematography , invested in user education and acceptance of it and then it is just normal that you can still it?

Where I have seen such attitude last time, something familiar here…..

Andrew

 

[Terry VerHaar]

Hear, hear, Jim. I wish people would just calm down and let you do your job. Thanks for the explanations, even if they aren't really necessary.

 

[Michael Ou]

You have to be doing something right when others scramble to play catch-up, and the pace is accelerating fast! It's like the QB throwing the ball where the wide receiver will end up, not where he's at in the moment! I'm loving the pace btw!

 

[George Nelson]

Sony is literally the giant and RED is the little guy with a slingshot. I wish you all the luck Jim.