Re: Last March, UK software company kicked out of US markets

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 12:55:00PM -0500, Gregory Aharonian wrote:
 
> The 20 March 2002 issue of the British Journal of Photography, page 8,
> reports on the following trans-Atlantic patent squabble:
> 
>       Watermarker forced out of the US
> 
>       Following legal action begun by an American rival called
>       Digimarc Corporation, the English firm Signum Technologies
>       has been forced to withdraw its SureSign digital image
>       watermarking system from the American market.  Graham Shaw,
>       managing director of Signum, explained that litigation was
>       putting a huge burden on Signum's financial resources, which
>       it could not justify in the context of business activities
>       in America.  Signum cannot now sell watermarking products
>       in America, and it was also forced to grant Digimarc a
>       worldwide royalty-free license of its own patent portfolio.
> 
> My comment:
>                         Zu kampfen ist einfacher,
>                         diese kriege von patenten,
>                         wenn sie kaufen konnen,
>                         diene waffen zu hause.

Sounds as if it could be intended to be german. 
Could be translated as

        To fite is simpler
        these wars from patents
        if they can buy,
        thou shalt serve arms at home.

I can't make sense of it, but at least the above news about Sigma
being forced out of the US sounds interesting.  I wonder on what basis
the US court can force Sigma to grant a world-wide license for its own
portfolio to Digimarc.  Was that the result of negotiations, in which
Sigma acquiesced to all demands of Digimarc because of the threat of
"punitive damages" in Kodak vs Polaroid style?

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608   
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
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