How come it took almost 15 years for Forgent to clarify “its licensing program regarding…JPEG data compression technology”? Is it because there are only two hits on Google for “US Patent No. 4,698,672” (one of them is a news story about this issue) and none them are for Forgent?

According to the official JPEG site, the JPEG’s we most often encounter is a basic version of an ISO standard (also published as ITU-T T.81) “in association with a file format placed into the public domain by C-Cube Microsystems (JFIF).” The W3C has more information on its use, which is dated around 1991.

Though that is four years after Forgent’s patent, the company has still had 11 years to act. In fact, of the list of patents related to JPEG, Forgent’s doesn’t even appear.

The whole patent situation has become Kafkaesque.