EspenB

It's perfectly unclear here what kind of Sony sensors Nikon use or to what extent any modifications are made by Sony sensor engineers or team Nikon themselves. And neither will tell you the truth.

The new patent is only for the specific tweak, not the old stuff. Like I said, evolving CD into Blu-Ray doesn't prolong the patent for CD.

You can not "extend" a patent. Unless you build something new. Still, the old stuff are in public domain after 20 years. When the Sony/Philips patents for CD was dead, evolving it into a DVD or Blue Ray by them or others did not bring back the old patents for CD per see. (There was other patents here, like the generic patents for optical disc, later acquired by Pioneer Corp in Japan, which for some reason had a extended filling time - (application was lost at the patent office) but for the sake of this discussion I try to keep it simple.) The latest RED.com RAW patent can be read here, but heck there is just claims of the old stuff really, with the added methods of pre-/de-emphasis of the compressed data which to my understanding was not in the original "internally compressed RAW patent". There seems to be just about a new form of "15-bit to 12-bit pre-emphasis function" now added to the redcode processing after RED switched from wavelet to DCI based compression. FIG 5 in the patent is all that is new. https://ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/11503294 As far as I know there are other patents for the pre-/deemphasis of the wavelet based redcode which have now been abandoned for the later DCI compression. The internally compresed RAW patent is not about the compression, just the idea of 24+ FPS and >2K res RAW frames... Quite stupid. And neither the wavelet based (JPEG2000) or the DCI based compression is a invention by RED, it's just licensed for use in the redcode.

Countdown has been running since November 2019.

The only thing which have kept the church of RED alive is the patent. And the insane mark up on cards, viewfinders, etc. Patent is dead in four years regardless. Also, RED is run like a surf shop which now meets japanese corporate culture. What could go wrong.

What did Nikon pay? How can Nikon make this back in the next 3-4 years before the patent expires?

Patents expire after 20 years. The basic "internal compressed RAW" patent expires in april 2028. Or the end of the same year, I'm not sure. In any case "the patent" only has four years to go. https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=RED.com RAW patents expire&p0=840&ud=2&year=2028&month=4&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&fromtheme=party

The virus is called SAR-CoV-2.

The basic problem with RED.com is that they are a one hit wonder. Thanks to the US patent office. As far as I can tell they have done nothing to continue to innovate further.

Days until RED patent expires. ? https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/party?p0=840&iso=20280411T00&year=2028&month=4&day=11&hour=0&min=0&sec=0&msg=RED.com RAW patents expire&ud=2&csz=1

Yeah I know REDs focus was on 4K. Still Dalasa was there first. ? It's a strange patent. I wonder if the company will be totally run over when the stuff expires.

Pre-/de-emphasis is a well know noise reduction method / signal-processing step. Used by basically all analogue media i.e., RIAA on LPs, Dolby Noise reduction, etc. "a process of increasing the amplitude of certain frequencies relative to others in a signal in order to help them override noise, complemented by deemphasis before final reproduction of the signal being received." So you could use a 5:1 ratio and avoid the patent? Espen

Mea culpa. The RED.com RAW patents was filed in 2007/2008, so will basically expire in 2028. 8 more years to go and we can give RED.com the finger.

Fear not. A patent is only for 20 years. January 26, 2036 everything will be fine.

The RED patent is for compressed RAW video with at least 24 FPS.