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Columbia

University professor could trigger a Blu-ray injunction

By Scott Fulton Beta News March 21, 2008

http://www.betanews.com/article/Columbia_University_professor_could_trigger_a_Bluray_injunction/1206132536

With a few victories already under

her belt, a celebrated physicist seeks to leverage those wins in a contest to

reclaim her legacy. The other side of the story is that everything with a blue

laser diode in it has just come under suspicion.

A fifty-six-year veteran physicist

who is currently Columbia University's Howe Professor Emeritus of Materials

Science and Engineering, will have her patent infringement case heard by the US

International Trade Commission. If Judge Paul J. Luckern concurs, an injunction

could be placed on the import of all electronics containing blue-laser diodes manufactured

using a certain patented process.

Prof. Gertrude F. Neumark Rothschild

filed suit in February against some 30 of the world's principal consumer

electronics manufacturers, including Sony, Toshiba, LG, Lite-On, Matsushita,

Hitachi, Motorola, Nokia, Pioneer, Samsung, Sanyo, Sony Ericsson, and Sharp.

Her claim is that all these companies produce blue-laser diodes using a

particular semiconductor manufacturing process, whose patent she applied for in

1988 and received in 1993.

That particular process, she claims,

is actually the only one there is for making reliable blue-laser diodes; and

the implication of her suit is that corporations simply adopted that process as

though it were in the public domain, perhaps because they thought its discovery

in a university made it public -- a common misconception.

Contrary to reports, the professor

is no "little old lady," nor is she some patent troll acting on

behalf of long-forgotten interests. In fact, Prof. Rothschild (nee Prof.

Neumark) is a formidable adversary who already won several battles in an effort

to reclaim what she sees as her long-overdue royalties. Her previous volley of

infringement suits was launched in 2002 against semiconductor producers Philips

Lumileds, Cree, and Toyoda Gosei, for infringing against this same battery of

patents. Toyoda Gosei settled out of court in August 2006 for an unspecified

amount; Philips Lumileds settled with her just two weeks ago.

The professor's attorneys describe

her as no less than the inventor of the blue-laser diode, and her patent makes

a convincing case that the moniker may be deserved. A blue-laser diode is a

type of semiconductor which produces light at given frequencies. It does this

by exciting electrons in the stream so much that they lose energy as they leap

over what's literally called a "wide gap." The distance of that gap

helps determine the frequency of the emitted light, though to get those

electrons excited just right, the semiconductor has to be doped with just the

right impurities.

In patent number 5,252,499,

"Wide band-gap semiconductors having low bipolar resistivity and method of

formation," which credits Prof. Rothschild as the sole inventor on behalf

of herself, a set of those impurities is listed. Among them is gallium nitride

(GaN), and her patent describes how this and a few other candidates can be

introduced into the n-type side of the semiconductor. That alone would create

undesirable results, so her process goes on further to explain how the

introduction of atomic hydrogen on the p-type side would neutralize the

undesired effects, enabling the desired state of low bipolar resistivity.

Evidently, hers could be the process

by which low resistivity is typically attained.

It could be a very long battle, but

the professor appears experienced in such matters. A multitude of Japanese and

German patents on gallium nitride-based semiconductors to which Prof.

Rothschild did not contribute, may get called into question under new federal

law regarding the novelty of inventions that appear to be upgrades to existing,

older patents. Those patents have been the basis of Rothschild's previous

defendants' defense...but those defendants settled.

If the investigation launched by

USITC Judge Luckern finds that any or all 30 companies used Prof. Rothschild's

methods without proper attribution or royalty, and that they're in violation of

the dreaded Section 337 of the Tariff Act, the victors in the last format war

may find themselves answering to a very distraught customer base.

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Guest srobak

unless she developed this in her garage lab using her own funds and equipment - it most likely belongs to whatever university or research institution she was working for at the time.

Either way - the black helicopters are circling.

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If the patent is indeed her's as stated, Sony and the manufacturer's must first license the technology from her...Not simply pay her royalties!

If she licenses the technology to them, then they pay royalties.

It looks like she has the industry by the proverbial cahones.

And to think that Sony still doesn't have a handle on costs and is still losing money on each PS3 as it exists now!

Sound like she has won the HD war...and Sony loses....[:P]

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unless she developed this in her garage lab using her own funds and equipment - it most likely belongs to whatever university or research institution she was working for at the time.

It is listed as hers, and on her behalf alone, which means it is all hers. If it was on behalf of a University it would have had her name, and "on behalf of" some institution or company.

Does HD use a blue diode laser? I assume not, hence the name Blueray and the incompatibility between the two.

Travis

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HD-DVD abd BluRay use the same asic diodes. The lenses are different.

Am I reading that wrong then? If her patent it good, then she controls both technologies, HD and BlueRay. Thus there is no advantage to HD since they have to license and pay just like BR and thus it will not have an impact on the technology war?

Travis

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Am I reading that wrong then? If her patent it good,

then she controls both technologies, HD and BlueRay. Thus there is no

advantage to HD since they have to license and pay just like BR and thus

it will not have an impact on the technology war?

Travis

No, you are correct. That is why Toshiba is listed as part of the companies

that may be paying up.

Though I know this may be commonplace in the current marketplace, it rings

back to just a few years ago when it was discovered that a third party vendor

owned the rights to rumble/vibration technology that was used in video game

controllers in Microsoft's XBox and Sony's PS 2. Unlike MS who avoided

litigation and settled outside of court immediately when the controversy

started, Sony dragged their feet all the way to the courthouse. Judge

decided that Sony must stop the sell of all their consoles since rumble tech

was standard in every controller that they made.

Sony averted that financial disaster by paying the royalty fees on top of

court fees. As a result, Sony balked at the idea of incorporating rumble

tech into the almost similar PS3 controller saying it would interfere with the

Sixasis tech that was being incorporated. In reality, the previous court

decision probably inhibited their inclusion until a licensing agreement was

sealed.

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I'm kinda curious what took her so long to speak up? If she had the patent in 93 and is obviously involved with blue LED technology, then I think she would have known pretty early on that these companies were using Blue LEDs and that they were probably using "her" methods of fabrication. I know if I came up with some crazy awesome methods that I'd be curious who was using them and who wasn't. Of course she probably had the foresight to see that she could make some money on it only after the formats became more established, which in my mind is a bit dishonest and unreputable.

It is crazy obnoxious in the tech sector how many people are filing patents and how companies need to spend crazy amounts of resources researching the patent databases to make sure they're not reinventing things.

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Of course she probably had the foresight to see that she could make some money on it only after the formats became more established, which in my mind is a bit dishonest and unreputable.

I don't think so in this case.

If you note, she has ben fighting this battle since at least 2002. Take a minute and think about when Sony or Toshiba came out with the first production HD player...

Also, there is no basis for the initial assumption that the diodes necessarily had to use her process.

The only thing that appears 'late' is Sony's, et. al's. due diligence and our awareness of her efforts.

And as far as knowing about blue laser development patents, neither Sony nor Toshiba nor any other manufacturer should have had a problem with this, as the 'race' to build blue and ultraviolet laser diodes has been feverish since the early 90's. And no one gained any advantage by keeping such developments 'secret'. In fact, there efforts would have been better served by making their efforts and result public. But they bear no responsibility for paying to make such developments widely known.

We went through the same patent search dance (well, actually the DOE and USNavy did the legal search) in the process of developing a frequency agile SS infrared laser in the early-mid 90's as well. And unlike some technologies, there really aren't that many patents to search.

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Guest srobak

It is listed as hers, and on her behalf alone, which means it is all hers. If it was on behalf of a University it would have had her name, and "on behalf of" some institution or company.

Yeah, I got that... I am just wondering if perhaps there was some intentional oversight in her application. I mean - how many people do you know that go about developing such things in their garage, vs. with the funding, labs and other resources provided by working at a research institution? Having worked for 3 universities I can say that everyone from chemical engineer to the guy scrubbing the urinals signs away any rights to anything designed, developed, improved or invented using "company time, resources, facilities or funds"... If I had been able to take with me some of the things I developed or was otherwise involved in designing while there - I would be rolling in it for sure - ya know?

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It is listed as hers, and on her behalf alone, which means it is all hers. If it was on behalf of a University it would have had her name, and "on behalf of" some institution or company.

Yeah, I got that... I am just wondering if perhaps there was some intentional oversight in her application. I mean - how many people do you know that go about developing such things in their garage, vs. with the funding, labs and other resources provided by working at a research institution? Having worked for 3 universities I can say that everyone from chemical engineer to the guy scrubbing the urinals signs away any rights to anything designed, developed, improved or invented using "company time, resources, facilities or funds"... If I had been able to take with me some of the things I developed or was otherwise involved in designing while there - I would be rolling in it for sure - ya know?

What with noncompete clause, property/intellectual property, waivers to typical employee contracts, safeguarding their realm of virtual/real properties, every conceivable angle is covered.

That is why I am watching a certain search engine company, which has patent rights that the larger players will want soon. If you can't beat them in patent's court, make them a monetary offer they can't refuse, and buy them. The one(patents) in discussion here, as has been said already, could very well have companies by their proverbial nether-regions.

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