Pro DVD Authors please read

[Noah Kadner]

I don’t doubt it- patent trolling is out of control these days. As the DVD author it’s not really your problem though… You were just using software. if their patent lawsuits come to fruition and hold- doubtful as it sounds- the makes of the authoring software would be on the hook not you…

Noah

Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Canon 7D.

[Michael Sacci]

I bet if you go after enough people someone will just right a check. I don’t see how anyone can get a patent on motion menus with is just a mini movie with a propose. Maybe I should get a patent on “Intro movies”

[Eric Pautsch]

I’ve heard of this before. I’ll see if I can dig up some details about the specific company initating the lawsuits.

I’ve even heard of companies trying to patent their authoring coding styles.

Crazy world we live in 🙂

[Noah Kadner]

Sounds as legit as the spam letters from Nigeria all of us have received one time or another.

Noah

Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Canon 7D.

[Lee Mcgowan]

Hi Eric,
Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post.

If you could dig up any further details, that would be really great! When l was told that a ‘royalty’ was paid because of the motion menus, l told them that they must be crazy!

But they paid anyway, saying the fee was cheaper than paying for a Patent lawyer to defend their position & they did not want to be involved in an expensive Patent case where they stood the risk of bad publicity & being labelled as Patent Infringers!

My thoughts are that if there is a Patent on motion menus, Authors need to know…so they can advise their clients to factor in these costs. If this is just a scam, Authors still need to know, so they can advise & point their clients to the evidence that proves they are being scammed.

[Lee Mcgowan]

Hi Noah,
I agree to some extents that it is not really my problem. I wonder what Sonic or Apple for instance feel about selling software that encourages purchasers to commit Patent infringements!

[Noah Kadner]

And what did they pay exactly- bribe money? Anyone who seriously believes that they’re going to get sued by someone claiming to hold a “patent on motion menus” of all things is truly daft. It’s like saying- I patented clickable windows therefore because this video you commissioned was edited in an NLE that used clickable windows- you owe me money or I’ll sue you for patent infringement. That’s just dumb, they would sue the makers of the software if something so basic were even ever enforceable. A fool and his money are soon parted.

Noah

Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Canon 7D.

[Jim Arco]

“video you commissioned was edited in an NLE that used clickable windows- you owe me money or I’ll sue you for patent infringement”

Please don’t give the patent trolls any more ideas.

While the whole concept of patent trolling will likely (eventually) go away it seems like a real problem right now. Faced with a $25million lawsuit or a $10,000 “licensing fee,” I’d guess that many mid-sized entities will choose to pay the lower cost because they know it will take more than $10K worth of start-up for their corporate legal-beagles to even look at the case.

As far as the argument “Adobe made the tool – sue them” probably won’t get any farther than if you use photoshop to duplicate $20 bills. “I didn’t do it, photoshop did” would get you laughed out of the courtroom and into the graybar hotel for an extended stay.

We probably need to add a clause to OUR contracts excluding any liability for these (hopefully) frivolous claims.

Then again, maybe I ought to claim a patent on video playing simultaneously with music or with text!

[Noah Kadner]

[Jim Arco] “As far as the argument “Adobe made the tool – sue them” probably won’t get any farther than if you use photoshop to duplicate $20 bills. “I didn’t do it, photoshop did” would get you laughed out of the courtroom and into the graybar hotel for an extended stay.”

If you were using Photoshop to counterfeit bills you’d be knowingly breaking the law. Using a piece of DVD authoring software for its intended, designed use is not the same scenario by a country mile.

Example: you are driving a car. A technology company decides that the engine the car happens to have uses a component they own a patent for. Do they sue you for driving the car? Of course not, they sue the car manufacturer. And they will probably lose because the car manufacturer has good lawyers. So maybe the patent company realizes they have no real case and they go after the lower hanging fruit- you.

You the driver don’t have good lawyers and you get scared when someone threatens you with even the the most absurd sounding lawsuit. So you do the dumb thing and pay them some relatively paltry fee to just go away. But there are a lot of folks driving this car so rooking them is good money in the long run. And that is precisely what these motion menu people- if they even exist- are plying.

So let’s please hear some actual company names involved from the OP- so we can let any author who gets caught up in this scam to tell these ‘lawyers’ to eff right off.

Noah

Unlock the secrets of 24p, HD and Final Cut Studio with Call Box Training. Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Canon 7D.

[Kevin Christopher]

I dealt with this a year or so ago with a client. Luckily they had plenty of lawyers on staff to paper the hell out of them and they went away. It’s a pain to deal with. I am surprised they are still trying this. We had many discussions on the DVD Tully list, and one of the members actually made the first Motion menu for Sonic in 1997. Way before there so called patent.

Kevin