Nikon buys Red?

[EspenB]

1 hour ago, John Matthews said:

Redcode RAW was initially implemented in the early 2010s, but the filing was December 28th 2007. I imagine the patent will only last a few more years. This must have also played a role in the acquisition. Nikon will have a very short window to leverage it.

Patents expire after 20 years.

The basic "internal compressed RAW" patent expires in april 2028. Or the end of the same year, I'm not sure.

In any case "the patent" only has four years to go.

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=RED.com RAW patents expire&p0=840&ud=2&year=2028&month=4&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&fromtheme=party

[EspenB]

53 minutes ago, Nath said:

 

This or Jannard had really a short window to cash out his market advantage now .

What did Nikon pay?

How can Nikon make this back in the next 3-4 years before the patent expires?

[sanveer]

8 minutes ago, EspenB said:

Patents expire after 20 years.

The basic "internal compressed RAW" patent expires in april 2028. Or the end of the same year, I'm not sure.

In any case "the patent" only has four years to go.

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=RED.com RAW patents expire&p0=840&ud=2&year=2028&month=4&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&fromtheme=party

The countdown timer is epic 🤣🤣🤣

 

 

 

I feel Insiders in Panasonic, Nikon, Minolta, Blackmagic and others must anonymously disclose the patent abuses in the Market, so that they can be addressed and fixed.

Countries need to limit patent validities based upon industries, and also Safeguard Against Licence Abuses. If the EU can force smartphone companies to use USB-C chargers only (for some environmental reasons), come down upon Astrazenica for medicial patents etc, they should also prevent patent abuses in Hardware and Software, that pusy back industries and stifle fair competition. Only things regarding medical emergencies shouldn't only invite parliamentary interventions and remedies. Monopolistic and market and IP abuses should also imvite interventions. 

[sanveer]

Just now, sanveer said:

The countdown timer is epic 🤣🤣🤣

 

I feel Insiders in Panasonic, Nikon, Toshiba, Minolta, Blackmagic and others must anonymously disclose the patent abuses in the Market, so that they can be addressed and fixed.

Countries need to limit patent validities based upon industries, and also Safeguard Against Licence Abuses. If the EU can force smartphone companies to use USB-C chargers only (for some environmental reasons), come down upon Astrazenica for medicial patents etc, they should also prevent patent abuses in Hardware and Software, that pusy back industries and stifle fair competition. Only things regarding medical emergencies shouldn't only invite parliamentary interventions and remedies. Monopolistic and market and IP abuses should also imvite interventions. 

 

[EspenB]

On 3/7/2024 at 3:29 PM, andjo said:

This was unexpected. Quite intrigued to see where this leads, both camera and pantent wise.

The only thing which have kept the church of RED alive is the patent. And the insane mark up on cards, viewfinders, etc.

Patent is dead in four years regardless.

Also, RED is run like a surf shop which now meets japanese corporate culture. What could go wrong.

[EspenB]

4 minutes ago, sanveer said:

 

Countdown has been running since November 2019.

[Nath]

45 minutes ago, EspenB said:

What did Nikon pay?

How can Nikon make this back in the next 3-4 years before the patent expires?

 

 

who knows ? 

 

 

some words from Jarred and Phil about that 

 

 

 

[John Matthews]

46 minutes ago, EspenB said:

Patents expire after 20 years.

The basic "internal compressed RAW" patent expires in april 2028. Or the end of the same year, I'm not sure.

In any case "the patent" only has four years to go.

https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=RED.com RAW patents expire&p0=840&ud=2&year=2028&month=4&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&fromtheme=party

I'm fairly certain every manufacturer who's interested will have something lined up for that moment. In fact, I'll probably just wait it out. There's also a chance Nikon gets some easy money for licensing the idea of compressed to others on the cheap- that would be good for whole industry and also good for Nikon. Four years is nothing at this point when 2010 cameras are still viable solutions in 2024 and beyond.

[Danyyyel]

On 3/9/2024 at 11:43 AM, JulioD said:

No way is Nikon making a Burano type camera.  
 

Nothing will change at either company.  
 

A few years from now RED fold from stagnation or gets bought back by the owners and re-launches.  
 

You are right, they can do a better one, with better sensor tech, better Z mount, better stabilization, better internal codec etc. 

[Danyyyel]

2 hours ago, EspenB said:

What did Nikon pay?

How can Nikon make this back in the next 3-4 years before the patent expires?

They don't, you people have watched so much all these influencers telling you Nikon is doomed. That same company that didn't a profit only once during the last 15 years or more. They even have a big reserve of cash and are part of the biggest group of companies in Japan. 

The thing is Nikon is a 4.7 billons revenue company, while red is 160 millions. Nikon doesn't even need them to make a profit for now. They just need the branding and a way to get into the video/cinema world. Just the sales of Z-mount lens or cine version of them, might make the money back. 

[Danyyyel]

20 hours ago, mercer said:

Haha, actually the Z9 is supposedly a stock Sony sensor with a couple tweaks. I assume it's like the whole D850 debacle Nikon found themselves in. And I don't know what difference it makes who designed the sensor? If Sony owns a patent for their AF, and Nikon wants to use it, Nikon would still have to pay a license fee for it... if they designed the sensor or not.

There is no Sony sensor with the same spec. Can you show us a 45 megapixel stacked sensor from Sony in other cameras??? If you think Sony sensor division which is magnitude bigger than their camera division, is going to alienate their customers, Nikon being one of their biggest ever. You need to grow up. Nikon builds the steppers that Sony produce their chip on, their is no school yard mentality between those billions dollars companies.

[JulioD]

2 hours ago, EspenB said:

Countdown has been running since November 2019.

RED extended the patent. This is a common technique used by pharma companies to extend the IP protection. 
 

https://ymcinema.com/2022/12/01/red-digital-cinema-filed-another-patent-related-to-compressed-raw/

[ND64]

This acquisition caused some discoveries:

1- Some RED users are not mentally well. I mean who on earth glue a camera, which is a tool, to his entire identity? Its insane when you think about that. It may sound judgmental but I feel few of these guys are even closet antivaxxer.

2- People in video making echo chamber have no clue about still camera industry. Example one: they don't know how popular Z8 is. Example two: they don't know a big part of Canon market share is related to its strategy of sticking to the old habit of making cheap cripple hammered bodies. Example three: they don't know how much Nikon is involved in CMOS sensor development. 

3- Making "analysis" video about a corporate deal, with almost zero published details, is so easy for some of these YouTubers, that seems "Trust me bro" is not a meme anymore, but a serious way of life! 

[EspenB]

1 hour ago, JulioD said:

RED extended the patent. This is a common technique used by pharma companies to extend the IP protection. 
 

https://ymcinema.com/2022/12/01/red-digital-cinema-filed-another-patent-related-to-compressed-raw/

You can not "extend" a patent. Unless you build something new. Still, the old stuff are in public domain after 20 years.

When the Sony/Philips patents for CD was dead, evolving it into a DVD or Blue Ray by them or others did not bring back the old patents for CD per see.

(There was other patents here, like the generic patents for optical disc, later acquired by Pioneer Corp in Japan, which for some reason had a extended filling time - (application was lost at the patent office) but for the sake of this discussion I try to keep it simple.)

 

The latest RED.com RAW patent can be read here, but heck there is just claims of the old stuff really, with the added methods of pre-/de-emphasis of the compressed data which to my understanding was not in the original "internally compressed RAW patent".

There seems to be just about a new form of "15-bit to 12-bit pre-emphasis function" now added to the redcode processing after RED switched from wavelet to DCI based compression. FIG 5 in the patent is all that is new.

https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/11503294

As far as I know there are other patents for the pre-/deemphasis of the wavelet based redcode which have now been abandoned for the later DCI compression. The internally compresed RAW patent is not about the compression, just the idea of 24+ FPS and >2K res RAW frames... Quite stupid. And neither the wavelet based (JPEG2000) or the DCI based compression is a invention by RED, it's just licensed for use in the redcode.

 

[kye]

Announcements like this are just wonderful...

All it took was a pair of press-releases and all of a sudden dozens of people with no training or experience instantly turn into patent attorneys and corporate lawyers specialising in mergers and acquisitions and market strategists etc, and not only that, they also instantly gained insider knowledge about market caps, sales figures, product strategies, etc, and just when you'd think that it couldn't get any better they also become R&D experts in both hardware and software design!

With a shift so radical in capability, even the hardened skeptic must believe there is a higher power involved.

[JulioD]

1 hour ago, EspenB said:

You can not "extend" a patent. 

 

Yes you can by doing a minor tweak and then applying for a new patent.  Pharma companies do this all the time just changing the delivery method for the same drug.  
 

I don’t agree with the practice, but it’s naive to think this patent runs out when the new one RED just posted sounds awfully similar. 
 

“A 2018 study by Robin Feldman, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, found that 78 percent of new drug patents between 2005 and 2015 were for existing drugs.”

https://undark.org/2021/06/16/how-patent-extensions-keep-some-drug-costs-high/

[JulioD]

15 minutes ago, kye said:

Announcements like this are just wonderful...

All it took was a pair of press-releases and all of a sudden dozens of people with no training or experience instantly turn into patent attorneys and corporate lawyers specialising in mergers and acquisitions and market strategists etc, and not only that, they also instantly gained insider knowledge about market caps, sales figures, product strategies, etc, and just when you'd think that it couldn't get any better they also become R&D experts in both hardware and software design!

With a shift so radical in capability, even the hardened skeptic must believe there is a higher power involved.

At least all the armchair camera engineers go quiet for a while

[kye]

3 minutes ago, JulioD said:

At least all the armchair camera engineers go quiet for a while

Check the other threads....  they're still alive and well.

[mercer]

2 hours ago, Danyyyel said:

There is no Sony sensor with the same spec. Can you show us a 45 megapixel stacked sensor from Sony in other cameras??? If you think Sony sensor division which is magnitude bigger than their camera division, is going to alienate their customers, Nikon being one of their biggest ever. You need to grow up. Nikon builds the steppers that Sony produce their chip on, their is no school yard mentality between those billions dollars companies.

I didn't say the sensor was in other cameras. However, I did say it was a stock sensor, and that was probably a liberal use of the word on my part.

Sorry.

But I'll play along...

Both this...

https://www.popphoto.com/news/nikon-z9-sony-sensor/?amp

and this...

https://ymcinema.com/2022/06/28/the-nikon-z9-owns-a-very-impressive-sensor-unit/

state the sensor in the Z9 is the Sony IMX609AQJ. The second article states that the sensor in the A1 is the IMX610. Neither are listed on Sony's site as being in any other camera, but the nomenclature is pretty similar. I'm not a sensor nerd, so maybe someone else can tell me what the AQJ means on the Z9 sensor?

So it seems like Nikon designed the Z9 sensor based off of a current Sony sensor design. They made some tweaks, added their own features and everybody was happy. But it seems that the word design is a pretty liberal use of the word in the sensor world. It seems like more of a drop down menu of a bunch of options and Sony takes some of their current sensor IP, and some of Nikon's and transforms it into a "new" sensor that gets manufactured and delivered to Nikon.

My original question was about Sony's PDAF technology and if it was possible for Nikon to use it in a Red camera. Obviously, Nikon licenses it from Sony but do they pay an overall licensing fee to Sony for multiple cameras... or do they pay per sensor design/manufacture. I'm not knocking Nikon or Red... or even Sony. Actually, I'm kinda surprised a small army of dorks swooped down on such a banal question.

This was fun. 

[ND64]

4 hours ago, mercer said:

My original question was about Sony's PDAF technology and if it was possible for Nikon to use it in a Red camera

I'm not sure pixel shield PDAF IP is totally owned by Sony, since Nikon has a lot of patents related to that technique. Of course many cross licencing is happening in this industry. Dual gain was invented by Aptina, now part of ONsemi, which doesn't provide sensor for any of Japanese ILC makers, but everybody is using the tech. However if they want to add AF capabilities to RED, I don't think they would use pixel shield technique, cause it degrades image quality a little bit (the shielded pixel has lower S/N ratio than the rest of the pixels). Dual pixel and quad pixel is the way to go. Nikon has some interesting patents about that too. People put too much emphasis on sensor license fees. The fees are not really a big deal. The fab costs is.