RED Files Lawsuit Against Nikon

[sanveer]

17 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

has anyone heard from Jinnitech recently ?

The silence regarding him is eerie too. After youtube banned so many channels and an account of mine, I realised he may have been silenced. Or RED did something even stranger to him? 

Or maybe he's been cancelled? Pay some money, or use influence, and anything can be done to anyone. 

[Ryan Earl]

It's interesting to me that Nikon has a patent for image compression in a camera that RED cited in their patent application.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9565419B2/en

The other thing I found interesting about all this is that the 'Presler' patent that Apple had tried to use to show that RED wasn't novel was filed only a few days after RED's application.  Apple tried to get RED's date moved forward to give Presler priority.  

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100111489A1/en

With the timing of the two patents being so close anyway I don't see how RED is justified to pursue others so vehemently.  BUT the Presler Patent is certainly not as well written as RED's patent since it sounds so much more specific to cinema cameras, 24 frames a second, at least 2K, visually lossless compressed RAW and a 'novel' method for doing it.  

I'm presuming that patent for Presler would have been the one to use for the SI-2K which recorded Cineform RAW and was advertised as compressed RAW, but the 'visually lossless' part was not emphasized I don't think as well.  But wasn't Cineform RAW introduced in 2005?

[Ryan Earl]

20 hours ago, cpc said:

If you read the patents carefully they usually describe a few possible ways of doing this or that as "claims", and then explicitly say "but not limited to these". For years I used to think Red's patents are limited to in-camera Bayer compression at ratios 6:1 or higher, because this ratio is repeatedly mentioned as a "claim". Apparently, this wasn't the case as demonstrated by their actions against BM and others.

Yes, the 6:1 compression ratio as originally written is interesting to me too because it already shows that in 2007 RED was looking for a way to differentiate themselves from CineForm RAW in my view.  

For example they wrote "at least 2K," well if a camera was 1920x1080 that's not technically 2K!  So if I'm RED I will patent everything above 2K that is compressed RAW.  

This was published November 2006, months before RED claimed to have compressed RAW working in the RED One (March 2007):

https://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/SI-2K_CineFormTech.html

CineForm RAW is listed as 5:1 in the chart on the link.

"The SI-2K with embedded SiliconDVR records directly to the CineForm RAW™ digital intermediate codec, a powerful, 10-bit visually lossless codec that natively encodes the RAW bayer data from the single-sensor in the Silicon Imaging cameras, and preserves the RAW data at the codec level until the data is "flattened" for the final output."

[Andrew Reid]

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

I disagree, there is nothing novel at all to say "hey what gets done to one image, we could to twenty four of them!"

Of course there's a HUGE difference between doing it to 1 frame and 24 per second motion.

In terms of a concept that is the difference between an SLR and a cinema camera.

Patents are very specific so even slight differences in concepts and it is considered novel.

I don't hear you criticising Sony for ignoring the need for compressed RAW codecs back in the early 2000s when they had a chance to do something about it.

5 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Many many many bad patents are given out, and many bad patents are upheld and left standing when they shouldn't be. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20220306171619/https://falkvinge.net/2011/06/21/ten-myths-about-patents/ 

And when the RED ONE was released, the same was still true! Most were still shot on film, not the RED ONE. 

How many compressed RAW shooting digital cinema cameras were out before the RED ONE?

[Andrew Reid]

1 hour ago, Ryan Earl said:

It's interesting to me that Nikon has a patent for image compression in a camera that RED cited in their patent application.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9565419B2/en

That link is to the Presler patent I think?

1 hour ago, Ryan Earl said:

The other thing I found interesting about all this is that the 'Presler' patent that Apple had tried to use to show that RED wasn't novel was filed only a few days after RED's application.  Apple tried to get RED's date moved forward to give Presler priority.  

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100111489A1/en

Yeah I remember this now. Was very interesting and a lot of controversy over the timing of RED's patent and the public reveal of the tech at trade shows.

1 hour ago, Ryan Earl said:

With the timing of the two patents being so close anyway I don't see how RED is justified to pursue others so vehemently.  BUT the Presler Patent is certainly not as well written as RED's patent since it sounds so much more specific to cinema cameras, 24 frames a second, at least 2K, visually lossless compressed RAW and a 'novel' method for doing it.  

I'm presuming that patent for Presler would have been the one to use for the SI-2K which recorded Cineform RAW and was advertised as compressed RAW, but the 'visually lossless' part was not emphasized I don't think as well.  But wasn't Cineform RAW introduced in 2005?

Did the SI-2K record Cineform RAW internally or was it a camera head, with separate recorder?

[Andrew Reid]

So RED patent was 2 days earlier than Silicon Imaging's and the work on REDCODE started in December 2005.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US9245314B2

Covered on EOSHD previously during the Apple vs RED suit.

https://www.eoshd.com/news/red-respond-to-apple-in-patent-raw-wars/

Apple tried to argue it was not novel and an obvious to combine the Presler patent with other work.

The court decided otherwise.

We are not patent lawyers so I can't say the court got it wrong. That bit is outside my understanding.

From Graeme Nattress during the Apple trial:

“I first met Mr Jim Jannard in December 2005. At that meeting, we discussed his desire to create the first ever digital motion picture camera that could record compressed digital motion video at cinema quality levels, including 4K. I was intrigued by the possibilities, because combining the ease and flexibility of post-production of digital video while maintaining cinema-quality frame rate and resolution would be a game-changer in the world of movie making. But I also knew that digital compression was highly disfavored in the movie camera industry…

“To solve this problem, one key area I researched was the use of an image sensor with a Bayer-pattern filter. This was one of several unconventional avenues we explored at RED. At the time, such sensors were associated with lower-quality consumer-grade video cameras and derided as incapable of providing cinema-quality video due to artefact and resolution issues. In contrast, the industry consensus held that cinema quality cameras would need to utilize three sensors, with a prism to split red, green and blue light to each sensor. However, we believed that the benefits of a Bayer-pattern image sensor could be optimized if the image data remained in raw, mosaiced format for compression. We believed that such a data workflow could allow the raw digital files to operate as a digital negative, and world provide all of the post-production flexibility of being able to manipulate the original raw data.”

“Immediately following my December 2005 meeting with Mr. Jannard, I began working on the design of RED’s first commercial digital motion picture camera that would become known as the RED ONE. This work would last all throughout 2006 and into 2007 when we commercially launched the RED ONE video camera. My title on the RED ONE project was Problem Solver, and it remains my title to this day.”

“Paragraphs 22-28 of my 2014 declaration explain how we rejected…conventional thinking by implementing known compression techniques, such as JPEG 2000, in such a way as to operate on non-demosaiced Bayer-pattern image data, a type of image data these techniques were not designed to work on.”

“Accordingly, my work on the RED ONE camera was based on a video image processing pipeline that did not include a conventional demosaicing step prior to compression.”

“… The raw Bayer-pattern image data was then sent to a Xilinx processing FPGA chip for pixel correction and processing of the raw Bayer-pattern image data.”

“… The pixel- corrected and processed raw Bayer-pattern video image data was then sent to Analog Devices compression chips, which utilized a mathematically lossy wavelet compression codec known as JPEG 2000, to compress the processed raw Bayer- pattern video image data.”

“… The compressed raw Bayer-pattern image video data was sent to a memory device, by way of a SATA port, for storage as a raw data file that at one point in development was given a .JIM file extension in homage to Mr. Jannard and the new file type that RED had created.”

“We referred to the above programing for the RED ONE cameras, and the resulting raw compressed data files that it generated, as REDCODE.”

[Ryan Earl]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

That link is to the Presler patent I think?

Nikon patent's relating to image compression that was cited:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6958774B2/en

I'm not saying it helps. 

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Did the SI-2K record Cineform RAW internally or was it a camera head, with separate recorder?

I've never used one. . .

https://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/SI_2K_key_features.html

I believe the SI-2K did have an internal notebook style hard drive that could be swapped out.  They advertised Cineform RAW in camera, "Recording in the CineForm RAW™ Digital Intermediate format records a "digital negative" direct-to-disk, preserving the full dynamic range and per-pixel sensor data in the codec."

 

[Andrew Reid]

1 hour ago, Ryan Earl said:

Nikon patent's relating to image compression that was cited:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6958774B2/en

I'm not saying it helps.

Thanks. Probably doesn't help them much as this compression is designed for still images, rather than 24fps cinema.

Yet it remains their best hope, that RED have infringed a Nikon patent, and then they can do a swap.

Anyone know what date the trial is set for?

[ND64]

They should have patented the algorithm of compression, not the compression itself, because 1- compressing raw data is obvious 2- done before on still raw up to 5-6 fps in DSLRs, like Nikon D2x.

[cpc]

It should be clear that there is nothing in Red's compression algorithm that's specifically related to video as in a "sequence of related frames". It still compresses individual frames independently of each other, simply does it at fairly high frame rates (24+). Also, as repeatedly mentioned already the wavelet based "visually lossless" CineformRAW compression for Bayer raw data was introduced that same year months before Mr. Nattress had even met Mr. Jannard... If you read David Newmans's blog, which is still live on the interwebs, and is a great source of inside information for anyone interested, you will know that CineformRAW was started in 2004 and work for adding it to the Silicon Imaging camera started right after NAB 2005.

Not that this matters, as Red did not patent a specific implementation. They patented a broad and general idea, which was with absolute certainty discussed by others at the same or at previous times. Which isn't Red's fault, of course. It's just a consequence of the stupidity of the patent system.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Did not read all the RED patents, but when everyone cites the RED compression, talk about "raw Bayer data".

RED specifically patented raw Bayer-only data, or all kinds of mosaicing formats?

Because if it is specifically about Bayer filters, Fujifilm using X-Trans could implement internal RAW.

[IronFilm]

10 hours ago, Ryan Earl said:

Yes, the 6:1 compression ratio as originally written is interesting to me too because it already shows that in 2007 RED was looking for a way to differentiate themselves from CineForm RAW in my view.  

For example they wrote "at least 2K," well if a camera was 1920x1080 that's not technically 2K!  So if I'm RED I will patent everything above 2K that is compressed RAW.  

Yup, that's another example of what B.S. the RED patent is. 

"oh noes, someone else is already doing 1080, guess we'll just have to make our patent be for everything 2K and over!"

Bet the OG Pocket Cinema Camera could have given us 2K raw (rather than maxing out at 1080) if not for RED.

10 hours ago, Ryan Earl said:

This was published November 2006, months before RED claimed to have compressed RAW working in the RED One (March 2007):

https://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/SI-2K_CineFormTech.html

CineForm RAW is listed as 5:1 in the chart on the link.

"The SI-2K with embedded SiliconDVR records directly to the CineForm RAW™ digital intermediate codec, a powerful, 10-bit visually lossless codec that natively encodes the RAW bayer data from the single-sensor in the Silicon Imaging cameras, and preserves the RAW data at the codec level until the data is "flattened" for the final output."

"oh noes, someone else is already doing 5:1, guess we'll just have to make our patent be for everything 6:1 and greater!"

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Of course there's a HUGE difference between doing it to 1 frame and 24 per second motion.

Not really, is there a massive difference between 24fps or 23fps?? Or 22fps and 21fps? Or 18fps and 17fps? Or 9fps and 8fps? 

That's why by a simple process of induction, I say no. 

9 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

I don't hear you criticising Sony for ignoring the need for compressed RAW codecs back in the early 2000s when they had a chance to do something about it.

Sony already had on offer 12bit 444

And there were already numerous cameras shooting raw such as SI-2K & Viper 

8 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

So RED patent was 2 days earlier than Silicon Imaging's 

Proves the point that we wouldn't be all lost without hope if not for RED's "innovation", when they were merely hours earlier in filing a similar patent than someone else. Clearly this was all in the minds and familiar to numerous people around the world back then. 

Yes, I fully give credit to RED for launching the revolutionary RED ONE! (just like how the D90/5Dmk2 were all revolutionary as well! But that doesn't mean Nikon should have got a patent for HDSLRs just because they were "first"! Yikes, imagine a world where only Nikon could make HDSLRs?? 😮 ) 

And also the EPIC after the RED ONE was another leap forward for RED. Excellent stuff. 

But I can't buy the argument that RED has overall been a net positive rather than a net negative, I find that a little difficult argument to buy as it is on tenuous grounds. 

Because whatever good they did with RED ONE and DSMC1, I feel that has been greatly undone by the barriers RED has put up and stifling of the industry they've also created. 

Where might Blackmagic be today if not for the landmines they've had to step around which RED has placed? 

How much stronger might Kinefinity (& Z Cam) might be today if they could have had proper USA distribution and servicing of their cameras? (as that has undoubtedly been their biggest roadblock in getting widespread adoption in America / Hollywood. I've even had friends who in the past who looked into being a distributor for Kinefinity, but didn't because of RED. Of course now Kinefinity finally does have representation in USA, but imagine if they'd got this back in the early 2010's instead of only finally now? And without the limits RED placed upon them)

Might AJA or Digital Bolex had a second chance of success with another follow up camera if they first camera didn't have to worry about strife from RED lawyers?

Even worse, what is the unseen? How many companies don't even exist and never tried because of RED? 

 

[IronFilm]

6 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

They should have patented the algorithm of compression, not the compression itself, because 1- compressing raw data is obvious 2- done before on still raw up to 5-6 fps in DSLRs, like Nikon D2x.

The Nikon D2H from way back in 2003 could do 8fps. 

And the limits back then where not the processor speed to capture or to compress the image. But simply a limit on how fast the mechanical shutter of the DSLR could go. (which of course is a limit that a cinema camera never has to be concerned about at all) 

6 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

They should have patented the algorithm of compression, not the compression itself

But then they wouldn't have had a broad enough patent to bully others with. 

(plus there is the additional point, of the sheer complete stupidity that is patenting algorithms! You can not and should not patent math. The patent system in general is bad enough, but the fact there are software patents is many times worse)

5 hours ago, cpc said:

Not that this matters, as Red did not patent a specific implementation. They patented a broad and general idea, which was with absolute certainty discussed by others at the same or at previous times. Which isn't Red's fault, of course. It's just a consequence of the stupidity of the patent system.

Exactly, although I do kinda blame RED for exploiting that patent system and using it to bully and hammer others with. 

 

[mercer]

As usual, these conversations become boring and too one-sided. It's convenient to use Apple's complaint as some type of proof that Red is in the wrong here. The court found differently... perhaps Red's response cleared it up. Their timeline, supported by affidavits, state they were working on Redcode well before the other patents were filed. They also state that their compression is not based on JPEG2000.

https://*banned URL*/red-camera-apple-patent-challenge

It's easy to believe one party over the other if it supports your thesis or world view, but that doesn't make it true.

Don't get me wrong, I would love for more manufacturers to offer an internal Raw capability. I'm no Red Fanboy. But I do believe in the protection of intellectual property.

I'm curious how IntoPix claims its TicoRaw is a protected property given Red's stranglehold on compressed Raw.

[webrunner5]

What you start harming all of mankind I think the patent system needs overhauled. Sure, maybe when tech moved at a snail's pace it wasn't so invasive, now that stuff is moving at light speed, bottlenecks effect one heck of a lot of people and ideals.

I think Red's patents were more of a heck, lets screw everyone more than just helping out themselves to some advantage for several years down the road. Ergo I think it was more of a malicious thing, carefully thought out than a protection of an original idea. 

Corporations are un feeling beings, but they are also run by some pretty uncaring bastards also. Making huge amounts of money is rarely run by grandmothers with babies bouncing on their knee. The pursuit of money is a pretty god damn ruthless business.

[Ryan Earl]

10 hours ago, mercer said:

It's easy to believe one party over the other if it supports your thesis or world view, but that doesn't make it true.

That obscures the question of whether or not a company should be able to patent and prosecute others for the inclusion of compressed RAW in a camera.  

In my view, it's hard to argue reasonably that RED is simply protecting REDCODE by prosecuting others for using their own form of compressed RAW.  Are they all doing it the same way?  Compressed cDNG, KineRAW, NRAW, ProRes RAW all using the same method?

How is the inclusion of compressed RAW in a camera an intellectual property by itself?  

[Andrew Reid]

18 hours ago, Eric Calabros said:

They should have patented the algorithm of compression, not the compression itself, because 1- compressing raw data is obvious 2- done before on still raw up to 5-6 fps in DSLRs, like Nikon D2x.

They did didn't they? They patented the whole thing. The entire video camera system with RAW recording.

[Andrew Reid]

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Bet the OG Pocket Cinema Camera could have given us 2K raw (rather than maxing out at 1080) if not for RED.

They did 2.5K before that on the Cinema Camera.

It was when they introduced 3:1 compression in Cinema DNG that RED sued.

Nothing to stop them doing 2K Cinema DNG uncompressed.

It is quite a nice format and file sizes not too bad at that res.

Sigma Fp does cinema DNG today.

Blackmagic's response was to rip it out entirely, because they had the ulterior motive to sell us BRAW.

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

"oh noes, someone else is already doing 5:1, guess we'll just have to make our patent be for everything 6:1 and greater!"

Where are all the 5:1 compressed RAW codecs then if the patent doesn't apply to those?

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Not really, is there a massive difference between 24fps or 23fps?? Or 22fps and 21fps? Or 18fps and 17fps? Or 9fps and 8fps?

Yes

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Sony already had on offer 12bit 444

It's not RAW though. It is debayered with white balance baked in.

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

And there were already numerous cameras shooting raw such as SI-2K & Viper 

I don't think one or two cameras count as numerous?

Not even Sony F35 had RAW and that was a huge oversight by Japan.

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Where might Blackmagic be today if not for the landmines they've had to step around which RED has placed? 

I don't think it has hurt Blackmagic.

It spurred them into doing their own RAW codec for a start.

Plus Blackmagic cameras sell just fine and Resolve is really flying.

Blackmagic make a lot of their money from broadcast as well, where RAW recording isn't really sought after.

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Might AJA or Digital Bolex had a second chance of success with another follow up camera if they first camera didn't have to worry about strife from RED lawyers?

Neither of them ever had to worry about RED!

Digital Bolex was always against any compression of any kind.

They weren't even interested in doing 4K.

AJA Cion was a lovely idea but ultimately didn't sell. Not because of the lack of REDCODE but because of other reasons.

12 hours ago, IronFilm said:

Even worse, what is the unseen? How many companies don't even exist and never tried because of RED? 

My camera company doesn't exist and I squarely blame a rich sunglasses salesman for that.

[IronFilm]

10 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yes

There is a massive difference between 9fps and 8fps that is worthy of a patent? Well ok then, I think that is a strange perspective to believe in though.

11 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Not even Sony F35 had RAW and that was a huge oversight by Japan.

Not necessarily a huge oversight if it is not demanded by their users, just look at how much even today gets shot in ProRes vs raw!

12 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Neither of them ever had to worry about RED!

Am sure avoiding the wrath of RED lawyers is always on the mind of every new camera company. 

 

[BTM_Pix]

22 minutes ago, IronFilm said:

Am sure avoiding the wrath of RED lawyers is always on the mind of every new camera company. 

Not this mad bastard though.