{"id":154,"date":"2008-04-05T18:47:52","date_gmt":"2008-04-06T00:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/technologists.com\/notes\/?p=43"},"modified":"2017-07-04T10:56:52","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T15:56:52","slug":"public-display-of-dis-affection-avistar-patents-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/2008\/04\/05\/public-display-of-dis-affection-avistar-patents-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"public display of dis-affection: Avistar patents &amp; Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' 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14:56:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-12 18:48:51&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-21 00:15:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-04 05:17:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-08 15:08:28&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-15 07:15:21&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-23 17:57:58&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-29 19:28:05&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-03 09:53:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-10 13:09:26&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-14 01:53:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-14 01:53:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:404},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>In my experience, most of the substance of patent litigation, and the typical outcome,\u00a0negotiated settlement,\u00a0is hidden from the public: attorney-client discussions are privileged, experts are cautioned to be wary of items subject to discovery, settlement negotiations and details are privileged and usually subject to confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->So the relatively public goings on between Avistar and Microsoft are more than curious. Comments on re-exam minutiae in\u00a0Avistar&#8217;s February 25th press release, <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20080403002501\/http:\/\/www.avistar.com\/company\/news_detail.aspx?id=78\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft Challenges Avistar Patents<\/a>, seemed\u00a0unnecessary\u00a0within\u00a0the usual rationale for such a release,\u00a0investor relations.\u00a0The March 26 release, <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20080605053421\/http:\/\/www.avistar.com\/company\/news_detail.aspx?id=87\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Avistar Announces Cost Restructuring in Response to Patent Challenge by Microsoft<\/a>\u00a0was also successful in gaining trade press attention. This week&#8217;s Wainhouse Research Bulletin <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wainhouse.com\/files\/wrb-09\/wrb-0912.pdf#page=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">commented<\/a>, &#8220;Avistar &#8230; published a rather odd press release (in our humble opinion) that the company was reducing its US and European workforce by 25% as a cost cutting measure prompted by Microsoft\u2019s recent challenge to all 29 of Avistar\u2019s US patents.&#8221; Also on Thursday, Redmond Channel Partner published <a href=\"http:\/\/rcpmag.com\/blogs\/weblog.aspx?blog=2082\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Avistar&#8217;s Tale: Microsoft Shows Its Dark Side<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Is the venue the court of public opinion? If so, there may be Avistar detractors raising their voices. There are some in the videoconferencing a.k.a. &#8220;telepresence&#8221; industry rooting for Microsoft. They question the validity of U.S. patent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.ch\/patents\/US6212547\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">6,212,547<\/a>, &#8220;UTP based video and data conferencing&#8221;, with an October 1, 1993 priority date, in light of a plethora of earlier systems including CU-SeeMe, the MBone, Intel&#8217;s prototypes, and the prior art cited by Microsoft&#8217;s re-exam request, the 1980&#8217;s Bell Labs &#8220;Rapport Multimedia Conferencing System&#8221;. They question the validity of <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.google.com\/patent\/US5867654A\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">5,867,654<\/a>, &#8220;Two monitor videoconferencing hardware&#8221;, in light of 1989 multiple monitor products from VTEL, and other historical practice, especially after last year&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/06pdf\/04-1350.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">KSR<\/a> ruling.<\/p>\n<p>An attorney representing Avistar visited me in 2004. He did not appreciate my\u00a0opinion that the patents in question should not have been granted.\u00a0I cringed later that year when Polycom paid Avistar $27.5M in a licensing agreement. A Polycom\u00a0executive was apologetic when I questioned the amount. A Polycom competitor bemoaned\u00a0Polycom&#8217;s unwillingness to stand up to Avistar. Last year RADVISION agreed to pay Avistar $4M, and Tandberg agreed to pay an undisclosed amount, probably about the same as the Polycom amount. So I do not see these re-exam requests\u00a0as &#8220;Microsoft showing its dark side&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my experience, most of the substance of patent litigation, and the typical outcome,\u00a0negotiated settlement,\u00a0is hidden from the public: attorney-client discussions are privileged, experts are cautioned to be wary of items subject to discovery, settlement negotiations and details are privileged and usually subject to confidentiality agreements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8c9uP-2u","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":922,"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notes.technologists.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}