Microsoft, Nikon sign patent-sharing deal

Microsoft and Nikon have signed a cross-licensing deal that gives each company access to the other's patents.

The deal is one of a growing list from Microsoft, which has been seeking to establish the heft and significance of its intellectual property effort.

Detailed terms of the Nikon deal weren't disclosed, but the companies said Nikon is compensating Microsoft through the alliance.

"The companies believe that this patent cross-licensing agreement will substantially benefit customers of consumer products including digital cameras," the companies said in a statement Wednesday. "Both parties will be able to innovate openly with each others' technologies, enabling new features and products to come to market."

Nikon and Microsoft didn't indicate what new products and features would be enabled through the patent agreement, but they did point to existing cooperative efforts involving wireless cameras and raw image formats.

Raw images are taken directly from a camera's image sensor with little or no in-camera processing; the formats more detailed and flexible than JPEG, but they're also proprietary and specific to each camera model, and they require processing with software to become useful to most consumers. Windows Vista has the ability to display raw images as long as a camera maker supplies the necessary encoding and decoding software plug-in, called a codec.

[jumpjetta]

Oh, so my new Nikon (of the future) will probably only work fully if I use the M$ operating system du jour. Great.

[amarkj]

This is great news! How does cross licensing patents make a Nikon camera work only with a specific OS? I fear for the future if our educational system produces such results!

[texasphotoman]

What I am afraid of is MS has anything to do with corning Nikon to fix there RAW file where it will only be accessible with Vista. Mac will be left out. More MS Power.

[Penguinisto]

I smell a backdoor assault on Adobe, as MSFT has already launched an assault on Flash with Silverlight.

Personally, I'm just glad I use Minolta for my camera bodies.

[ozzymrjack]

they also tried to attacked adobe with msft expression,but not a very good one at that!

[neimac]

OMG this makes me want to puke! I am overall very happy with my Nikon camera and have no plans of selling it, but I will dump nikon in a hurry if Nikon/Mirosoft tries to force me to use windows in any way. Ive made other sacrifices to rid myself of windows hardware wise Ill change camera brands too.

[wjb80]

maybe now we can have support for Nikon support on vista-64

[RMarch]

You are blowing this way out of proportion. Microsoft did not just aquire Nikon. Nikon will never let thier raw formats be only usable on MS. This simply allows MS and Nikon to freely work on new products without any fear of a lawsuit down the road. It is the reality of business in the US market and it will have almost no direct impact on consumers.

[adasha76]

I love it how as soon as MS is mentioned all the anti-fanboys come out to bash something they've clearly made several major assumptions about.

[rexell51]

The comments make me think a bunch of Apple fans are getting paranoid, again!

[dude7895]

Looks like the fanboys are at it again, This just means Microsoft can use Nikons products, they didn't take over the company. If it was apple, you all would be protecting them and saying its a good idea. Almost every mac user is a hypocrite.

[goodspeed8701]

i agree with you dude even with the photosynth all the fanboy came out and spiting **** of something that is so kool. even jobs is so biased no admitting that windows media center is so better than frontrow instead the jerk said that their remote is better he is such a puke.

[davidwillisw]

You know it makes me wanna laugh??puke?? when the minutes, some of these ????? automatically get all dumb and stupid the minute microsoft is mentioned!! so sad.no matter what if it wasn't for MS where would the puter be?? and remember,for all the hype about (linx ? and apple) MS still rules the puter world,no matter how large the strides the others claim to make.so people,grow up there's good in both,realize it!!

[Vegaman_Dan]

Wow. The amount of panic and FUD being spread with just an announcement of patent sharing is unbelievable. I really thought people would have more of an open mind. At least for any sort of details to come out before you cry the sky is falling.

[jumpjetta]

I started this thread off. This isn't about being a "fanboy", you M$ apologist sheep. It's about precedent. Examples? The #1 photo management software on the Mac or Windows used to be iViewMediaPro UNTIL MS bought the company. Now, the renamed "Expression Engine" barely runs on anything but Vista. MS and NBC formed a partnership a few years back and guess what? You pretty much had to use M$ technologies to watch coverage of the Olympics online, most of which barely worked outside of a Windows-based product. That's just two examples out of dozens. Name me one major M$ technology purchase, partnership or other "intervention" that has resulted in things working better for the users of the technology of M$'s competitors. And don't Say MS Office for Mac.

I don't need to know the details to know, based on precedent, people who do not swallow the blue pill will lose out.

And at least Apple writes all its major software (iTunes, Filemaker, Safari, Quicktime, etc) to run with equal features on both platforms. Regardless of what you think of those applications running on Windows (and that's usually based on M$-apologist FUD, too, I might add) the feature set is the same on both Macs and PCs. Not so with ANY M$ product that I know of. If Apple formed some partnership with Nikon regarding the processing of RAW files, there's a high degree of probability any new capabilities as a result of that pairing would make it into QT for Windows.

So yeah, I as a professional photographer with a substantial investment in Nikon hardware and who also uses Macs because a Mac-based workflow for image manipulation and storage works better for me (and well, many, many professional photographers)... I have a need to be concerned about this announcement. Maybe it amounts to nothing. But given the heavy hand of MS in the past, I doubt it.

[ranpha]

Olympic coverage by NBC can be watched Mac users too. Don't tell me you do not know that? research please next time.

And don't use iTunes as an example, it makes you look bad. For years, Windows Media Player holds the title as the most bloated media player in Windows OSes. Then Apple iTunes comes, grab the title and kicks WMP to the curbs. And the OSX and Windows version are not even comparable in features.

If you are concerned, dump your Nikon on eBay and buy Canon. Hahahaha.

[devodude6687]

Actually, my Mac was better for watching the Olympics than my mom's XP machine.
I honestly don't think Nikon is going to oppress Mac users. That's close to suicide.
The Mac is where the best art happens. Nikon would be completely retarded to kill Mac support.