Back in February of this year, the Public Patent Foundation requested that the U.S. Patent and Trademark office re-examine a patent issued to Forgent Networks for the JPEG picture format; a patent used to obtain upwards of $105 million worth of license agreements. The examination was completed with results being issued last Thursday. Out of the 47 parts of the original patent, 19 were rejected because of their broad nature. One such part, the first, describes "A method for processing digital signals ... to reduce the amount of data utilized." Broad indeed.
Both sides, Forgent and the Public Patent Foundation, seem to be pleased with the results. Forgent insists, however, that it will defend the rejected parts.