Forgent Settles JPEG Patent Battle

Forgent Networks has announced to reach a settlement agreement regarding its pending patent infringement lawsuits with all of the parties including Microsoft for infringing Forgent’s JPEG patent --- U.S. Patent # 4,698,672 (the ‘672 patent). Forget sued companies throughout the tech industry but face hard resistance for Microsoft which retaliated and tried to invalidate Forgent’s patent on the image-compression technology. On June 28, 2006 the Court issued its claims construction ruling, which favored the majority of the defendants’ claim construction. Specifically, the Court ruled the claims to be limited to video and as a result of the unfavorable claims construction ruling, Forgent pursued settlement negotiations with the defendants. On October 25, 2006 Forgent signed a Patent License and Settlement Agreement with the defendants. Under this agreement, Forgent granted the defendants a license and the defendants agreed to pay Forgent US $ 8 million.