Settlement over Forgent's jpeg

Even after unfavorable results in the re-exam of the '672 patent, Forgent Networks, the Texas enterprise software company that sued Microsoft and others for infringing on its JPEG patent, announced on Nov. 1 that "all of the parties in the cases have reached a settlement."

The Seattle Times reported: "On June 28, 2006, the Court issued its claims construction ruling, which favored the majority of the defendants' claims construction. Specifically, the Court ruled the claims to be limited to video. As a result of the unfavorable claims construction ruling, Forgent pursued settlement negotiations with the remaining defendants. On October 25, 2006, Forgent signed a Patent License and Settlement Agreement with the remaining defendants. Under this agreement, Forgent granted the defendants a patent license and the defendants agreed to pay Forgent $8.0 million."

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U.S. District Judge Kent A. Jordan (D. Del.) rejected claims that some of Kodak's cameras unlawfully use technology described in a 1989 patent owned by Ampex Corp. of Redwood City, Calif.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle stated: "Kodak is a long-standing innovator in the digital camera industry, and we have devoted significant resources to the research and development of our digital capture technologies. We did not believe that Ampex's suit had merit, and the court agreed with our position," said Laura G. Quatela, managing director for intellectual property transactions, in a statement issued Wednesday.

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Reuters reports that Invitrogen has prevailed over Stratagene: Stratagene said a federal judge overseeing the suit awarded Invitrogen $16.2 million in damages plus pre-judgment interest and ruled that Stratagene must pay Invitrogen's attorney's fees.