Little old lady suing Sony, Samsung, Nokia and everyone else for infringing on her laser patents
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Mar 21st 2008 5:47AM
posted Mar 21st 2008 5:47AM
Oh sure, she looks friendly enough. But don't let her matronly, argyle looks fool you. Retired Columbia University Professor, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, is looking to extract some cold, hard cash from a who's who of Consumer Electronics giants. Otherwise, they can forget about importing their goods into the US. Rothschild's complaint filed with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) on February 20th claims that some 30 companies are violating a patent she owns for light-emitting and laser diodes. Today, the ITC has agreed to investigate the matter. It's worth noting that Rothschild has already successfully tested the legislative waters with lawsuits against Philips and others -- the Philips matter was settled out of court earlier this month. In other words, her case has legs. Still, we have very little confidence in the ITC's grasp of the matter when they name "HD DVD players (e.g., Blu-ray disc players)" as products to be probed. Full list of companies named in the complaint after the break.[Via Reuters and mrontemp]
- Avago Technologies of Singapore;
- Bacol Optoelectonic Co. Ltd. of Taiwan;
- Dominant Semiconductors Sdn. Bhd. of Malaysia;
- Everlight Electronics Co., Ltd., of Taiwan;
- Exceed Perseverance Electronic Ind. Co., Ltd., of China;
- Guangzhou Hongli Opto-Electronic Co., Ltd., of China;
- Harvatek Internaional Inc. of Taiwan;
- Hitachi, Ltd., of Japan;
- Kingbright Electronic Co., Ltd., of Taiwan;
- LG Electronics of Korea;
- Lite-On Technology Corp. of Taiwan;
- Lucky Light Electronics Co., Ltd., of China;
- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., of Japan;
- Motorola, Inc., of Schaumburg, IL;
- Nokia of Finland;
- Opto Tech Corporation of Taiwan;
- Pioneer Corporation of Japan;
- Rohm Co., Ltd., of Japan;
- Samsung Group of Korea;
- Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., of Japan;
- Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd., of Korea;
- Sharp Corporation of Japan;
- Shenzhen Unilight Electronic Co., Ltd., of China;
- Shinano Kenshi Co., Ltd., of Japan;
- Sony Corporation of Japan;
- Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB of Sweden;
- Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., of Japan;
- Toshiba Corporation of Japan;
- Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., of Malvern, PA; and
- Yellow Stone Corporation of Taiwan.
Look at it this way. In the generic sense, a Blu-ray Disc player is a high-definition DVD player, so the quoted phrase above is reasonable. They could have spelled out "high-definition" as I did, but they used the well-understood shorthand. Never mind that "HD-DVD" is a specific trademark for a failed technology; they know as well as we do that it's dead and isn't relevant to the discussion. :-)
Actually, a blu-ray player isn't a high defintion DVD player. It is a high definition optical disc player, whose discs just happen to be called blu-ray discs. All DVDs are optical media, but not all optical media are DVDs. The terms DVD and optical disc are not interchangeable. DVDs are SD media, so high defintion DVDs don't exist. A blu-ray player is a player that plays blu-ray discs, not high definition DVDs (which don't exist). HD-DVDs are also not high defintion DVDs (even though that's what the acronym stands for), they are are a completely new format. If anything the lawsuit should have said "HD Optical Discs" or "HD Optical Media" or something like that because HD DVDs don't exist, HD-DVDs do, but not HD (high definition) DVDs. There are (okay were) 3 main optical formats, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and DVD. Just tacking HD in front of DVD doesn't mean anything. Anyway, this is all semantics and i'm sure everyone involed knows what the lawsuit means, so in the end it doesn't really matter.
Actually, a blu-ray player isn't a high defintion DVD player. It is a high definition optical disc player, whose discs just happen to be called blu-ray discs. All DVDs are optical media, but not all optical media are DVDs. The terms DVD and optical disc are not interchangeable. DVDs are SD media, so high defintion DVDs don't exist. A blu-ray player is a player that plays blu-ray discs, not high definition DVDs (which don't exist). HD-DVDs are also not high defintion DVDs (even though that's what the acronym stands for), they are are a completely new format. If anything the lawsuit should have said "HD Optical Discs" or "HD Optical Media" or something like that because HD DVDs don't exist, HD-DVDs do, but not HD (high definition) DVDs. There are (okay were) 3 main optical formats, Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and DVD. Just tacking HD in front of DVD doesn't mean anything. Anyway, this is all semantics and i'm sure everyone involed knows what the lawsuit means, so in the end it doesn't really matter.
Ahhh....I don't believe that HD-DVD is a failed technology. It's simply a technology that was trampled into the ground by the Likes of Sony and their buckets of money. The technology is actually quite good. Sony just happened to be in the market for some payback after loosing in the Beta vs VHS wars.
@ Loban:
So, how's business at The Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop these days? ;)
"DVD" (Digital Video Disk) has become a generic term for video discs in general, even though it is a trademark for a specific format (Digital Versatile Disk [formerly Digital Video Disk]). Just as Aspirin is the common term for many ASA based drugs (and even some non-ASA based ones) even though it's a specific brand name.
I would tend to agree with MHAithaca that when the ITC used the term "HD DVD" they meant "High Definition Digital Video Disks" in the general sense and not the specific, and dead, format. It is an accurate term, that unfortunately collides with a trademark (which is likely why Toshiba chose the name in the first place).
DVDs are not "Digital Video Discs" they are "Digital Versatile Discs" which can include video or data, which is why they have the designation of being DVD-ROM or DVD-Video or DVD+/-R/RW. So saying you have a "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc" is not saying that you have a video disc that has high definition content. And Toshiba did not "collide with a trademark" when they used the name HD DVD, the DVD consortium, now known as the DVD Forum, created both the DVD and HD DVD standards.
Note that I said the trademark DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disk, and was formerly known as Digital Video Disk. This is because when DVD first hit the market, it was billed as Digital Video Disk, it was only when PC DVD burners started hitting the market did the "V" get changed to "versatile" to better represent the multi-use capabilities of the format.
"DVD" is ALSO a generic acronym for "Digital Video Disk"
The comment was in reference to the ITC's use of HD DVD, which was likely for generic "High Definition Digital Video Disk" players. Meant to encompass all High-Def digital video formats stored on [optical] disks, and not specifically the "HD DVD" format.
Thus the trademark collision I was referring to was not "HD DVD" with "DVD", but once again the ITC's generic use of "HD DVD" in the document (covering BluRay, and other formats) with the now defunct "HD DVD" format. It was an unfortunate use of the acronym, because it does collide with a trademark.
I won't even get into disk contents, as that is not what was being talked about here. The comments are in context of the article, not a general discussion on the various formats, and what they are capable of carrying. But yes, one can put anything on the disk, as it is all basically data at the lowest level. I never implied anything different.
I can't believe there's a story above just asking to be ridiculed and we're all debating what was implied in the term "HD DVD players."
Little Old Lady FTW!
Werd, I'm gonna go mug her while the rest of the internet community is locked in a linguistics death struggle.
The irony is that even though she holds the patents she probably still makes her grandkids program the DVR. Damned newfangled contraptions, back in my day it was all dentures and diodes.