HuffmanCodewords
Latest
Philips sues Kodak over patent infringement
It's been a mixed day over at Philips: on the one hand, they had the pleasure of announcing a new offspring, Liquavista, but now they've been forced to air some dirty laundry concerning fellow consumer electronics manufacturer Kodak, taking the NY-based company to court for allegedly infringing upon a sixteen-year-old patent. Philips claims that while several digital camera manufacturers license the JPEG compression technology protected by patent number 4,901,075 (refer to the schematic above for all of the technical details), Kodak refuses to do so, even though many of their products supposedly take advantage of the "Huffman codeword" magic outlined within. Financial details of the suit have not been made public, but Kodak doesn't sound like it's going to budge, saying that it will defend itself "vigorously."[Via Reuters]
