Forgent Networks, owner of the technology behind the JPEG digital video file format, sued Microsoft Corp for infringing on its patent, the smaller software company said on Friday. The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Eastern Texas on Thursday by Forgent subsidiary Compression Labs Inc, was filed in response to a lawsuit filed by Microsoft earlier this week to stop the company from enforcing its patent.
Michael Noonan, a spokesman for Austin, Texas-based Forgent, said that the two sides had been in negotiations for several months until Microsoft filed its lawsuit.
"We own the technology and own the patent, so we felt the best response was to seek damages," Noonan said. Forgent is seeking unspecified damages, although the company said it has earned over $100 million from the licensing of its patent.
United States Patent No 4,698,672 is the technology used to compress the large amount of information needed for digital images into JPEG, one of the most widely-used image file formats in computing.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft declined to comment on the lawsuit.
In its complaint filed against Forgent and Compression Labs a week ago, Microsoft said that the patent was invalid and was not enforceable and that the company had been suing its customers for the use of JPEG technology.
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