Kasper Jade
In the 6-page complaint, filed Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, Digital Background Corporation claims that the Apple software infringes on its 1998 patent entitled "Real-Time Method of Digitally Altering a Video Data Stream to Remove Portions of the Original Image and Substitute Elements to Create a New Image."
iChat 4.0, which shipped last month as part of the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system, also contains "a 'backdrop' feature which takes a picture of the background, replaces it with a photo or video of choice using a video frame storage and computer system to modify and then display the new image," the suit explains, without going into further detail.
Digital Background Corporation has asked the Court to award it a permanent injunction enjoining Apple from selling copies of Leopard that include the software, damages resulting from the infringement, treble those damages because DBC believes the infringement has been willful, and attorneys fees.
DBC's claim that infringement has been willful appears to stem from the fact that its technology has been readily accessible through a Windows product dubbed StarFX, which notes in its credits that the employed virtual backdrop technology is patented. The software application is "designed to be the industry standard for manipulating and enhancing PC video in real-time," according to a June 2000 press release.
Viewics's StarFX Software (Left) and Apple's iChat 4.0 (Right).
In addition, the company is asking in its suit that existing copies of Leopard be recalled from wholesalers, that all infringing equipment produced by Apple be destroyed, and that Apple "send a copy of any decision in this case in favor of DBC to each person or entity to whom Apple has sold or otherwise distributed any products found to infringe [its] patent, or induced to infringe [its] patent, and informing such persons or entities of the judgment and that the sale or solicited commercial transaction was wrongful."
DBC, by way of its attorneys at SimmonsCooper LLC, are requesting a trial by jury.
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
AppleInsider Staff
Chip Loder
Malcolm Owen
81 Comments
In addition, the company is asking in its suit that existing copies of Leopard be recalled from wholesalers, that all infringing equipment produced by Apple be destroyed, and that Apple "send a copy of any decision in this case in favor of DBC to each person or entity to whom Apple has sold or otherwise distributed any products found to infringe [its] patent, or induced to infringe [its] patent, and informing such persons or entities of the judgment and that the sale or solicited commercial transaction was wrongful."HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"breath"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Prior Art: See; ANY weather broadcast.
Prior Art: See; ANY weather broadcast.
Or most Sci-Fi channel shows....
Why are they doing this only now? It's been a known fact for more than half a year that this will be a feature of iChat.
Seems stupid. Or did they wait for the product to be released?
I think they're being lenient, they should have also stated that anyone who has come in contact with said technology i.e within visual range must be immediately and inhumanely put to death and then spat on for stealing their so ingenious invention that no one has ever used before.
Why is it that people see it right to bring up such asinine lawsuits against Apple for clearly ridiculous things and yet Apple brings out the iphone, almost everyone copies it in some form and we hear nothing about it - you'd think all these ambulance chasing lawyers would be on Apple's side as way more people copy them than the converse. Apple practically invented the entire personal computer industry and some schmuck thinks they deserve to be taken down for using real-time green-screening.
This suit acctually has slightly more merit then most of the other ones popping up lately...
That being said... Let's have an metaphore for this.
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A young boy at school makes comic books that many of the other kids read. Another little boy draws a picture, and hides it in his desk, saying, "If they want to see it, they can come ask me." Many other kids draw pictures like it, but he doesn't care. Several months later, The comic book boy draws a 300 page book, and one of the pages looks a little bit like the other boy's picture, only still much different. Soon, everyone on the playground is reading the comic book. The boy who drew the small picture goes to the teacher, showing her and saying "Teacher, teacher! I drew this picture yesterday and showed it to everyone and then that other boy made his big comic book about it, and he stole my picture to do it!!! Make him tear it iu please, make him tear it up, burn any desk he put it in, and then write an apology letter to anyone who saw it!!! Pleases?? He copied me!"
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[/allegory]