Slashdot Mirror
IPIX Shuts Down Free Software Developer - Again
l-ascorbic writes: "In 1999, Internet Pictures Corporation (IPIX) started persecuting anyone who made software to produce 360 images. They succeeded in forcing Professor Helmut Dersch, the creator of the GPL Panorama Tools to remove certain functionality from his software.
Well, they're at it again. They have now
forced him to shut his website. IPIX hold several US patents on remapping fisheye images, and first went after US sites that linked to the PanoTools site. Prof Dersch says he may now have to distribute his software using tricks similar to those
needed by GIMP to avoid the Unisys GIF patents."
Check out Ford Oxaal's system, which is what IPIX stole and patented. He actually now owns the patent that IPIX only claims to own. http://www.pictosphere.com/real-story.html
I just love iPIX's 'security' scheme too. Early on, iPIX images were just a large JPEG image wrapped in a simple file format that contained initial orientation information, and other metadata.
They've now advanced their business model to a per image produced cost, and the images their software produces are time limited (ie: the iPIX viewers will not honor an image once it's key has expired).
About a year ago, I worked for a company that used iPIX technology, but were getting sick of the cost and wanted to move to a free alternative. However, they had tons of their images locked up in iPIX format. Investing a little time in cracking their encryption, it turns out that it's basically still the old file format with a JPEG inside, so I wrote some code to extract the JPEG images, or extend the viewing life of the iPIX image, and I also wrote a Java applet iPIX-like viewer for iPIX images, that completely ignores the time stamp info. If there's enough interest, perhaps I'll post these tools around...
> Exactly why do you think he is clueless ?
...)
Because he thinks *patents* have to be protected. It is not a *view*. It is a *fact* that *trademarks* have to be protected against dilution, but not *patents*.
> I couldn't agree more with him.
This doesn't make him right, but it does makes you wrong.
> That is wrong, patents must also be actively protected.
Nope. See the UNISYS GIF patent, for example. There is a shitload of other examples of patent hidden for years before using them as weapons or cash-cows (RAMBUS, BT,
> We wouldn't have much medicine if IP didn't exist. Who would afford to spend billions of dollars on AIDS research if anyone could just copy it when it's done.
Explain this to any south africa resident.
> Do you think people spends huge amounts of $$$ on research just because they think it's fun?
ipix spent very little money on research. They patented something rather obvious (using fishlens to produce 360 images) that was done before.
Anyway, explain me what good software patents did to software ? Can you give me serious example of software that would not have been developed if it was not patentable (I can give you example of software that have *not* been developed because of existing software patents) ?
Cheers,
--fred
In fact, just about any graduate student in astronomy in the 70s and 80s (including yours truly) used these algorithms, and algorithms from which theirs evolved, to remove nonlinear mapping in images. In fact, some telescopes had to use curved glass on photographic plates to remove those "warpages".
I note that the number of people who seem to be taking the above message completely seriously is just further evidence of the poor reading skills and mediocre intellectual ability of the average slashdot reader.
Whatever is done in modern western countries brought not just the wealth but also some strange phenomenons like Microsoft domination caused by another phenomenon: pepole unwiling to THINK.
Btw, it looks like your top goal is wealth. Mine is to be content. While to be content I need some wealth, wealth is not everything I need to be content.
Those interested in details please read for example Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning was the Command Line".
Note: it's quite a long article (it took me 3.5 hours to read) but it is very good.
hany
Yes, I do. Because "those people" are not ripping off.
So taxpayers are benefiting - they get software for fraction of price because of a lot of people payed development.
Also point 2 can be taken even further:
So my country is also benefiting!
hany
Someone could just add their copy of
the panorama tools to freenet and post the key on
slashdot.
Hey, gimme a break. I hadn't had my coffee yet. :)
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Once again the sheer idiocy of the US patent office is revealed in all its glory.
Sad thing is the overseas offices are bowing to this idiocy as well and granting the patent in the other countries since it should be ok since it passed in the US.
The last couple of years I have been so amazed at the sheer lack of common sense or ability to think logically it is not funny anymore.
I mean, patents on math equations, trademarks on parts/pieces of the english language, patents on vague ideas.
And they wonder with idiocies like this why suicide rates are high. *sigh*
Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
For fun I did a :
us patent office stupidity
search on Google.
Second hit leads to www.patent.gov.uk:
''The Amazon "one clicV patent (in the USA) highlights the stupidity of allowing patents on methods. To recap, Amazon combined web-pages, cookies (which store information about web users) and program code to allow users to buy products by simply clicking on a button on a web page. The technology wasn't new or innovative, it just hadn't been combined in exactly the same way. Now other web sites are prevented from offering a similar interface to users because of Amazons patent. The result is the consumer loses out.''
Nice to see some offices have some sensibility left.
Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai
I don't know, he hasn't really had a hit since She Blinded Me with Science, has he?
Science!
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I notice they haven't sued Apple for QTVR yet?
Those are 3d panoramic images, eh?
I wonder why? Hmmm.... a mystery.
Oh! Perhaps it's that Apple's a big fucking company with a cadre of frothy-mouthed pit-bull lawyers of their own who'd likely tell iPIX to fuck off in 15 pages of legalese, unless they were having a bad day in which case they'd bend 'em over and well, i'll leave off there.
Stupid patent office. God i hate those fuckers.
-krb-
The problem, unfortunately, sounds like it's not a case of the Foobar-Bazbox Fisheye Algorithm (TM) being trademarked. It sounds like IPIX has a patent on fisheye->panorama conversions _altogether_. Which means that no matter how many clever alternate algorithms or methodologies you come up with for converting fisheye images to panoramas, you're still going to be running afoul of the patent.
In other words, they have the sole and exclusive right to convert fisheye images to panoramas, regardless of how it's done. It's not a matter of "how" you do it, it's that you're doing it in the first place.
Think about that. It's like saying that a particular tire manufacturer has the sole and exclusive right to make round tires, regardless of the manufacturing method used. It wouldn't be a matter of "how" you made the tires, but that you made them in the first place.
See how ludicrious that sounds?
--
This guy developed a panoramic imaging system totally independently from iPIX. they are, and have been going after him solely for having a system that does the same thing as their patented system. It has nothing to do with him releasing their "secrets" or any such nonsense; for that matter, a patented process is not "secret" since that's the whole purpose of patents (as several other posters have pointed out.)
To use the threat of legal action as a way to force small developers or individuals into a particular path of action is reprehensible, and that's one of the biggest issues here. We all understand the concepts of IP, and of the fact that money is what puts food on the table. However, using legal manuevering to crush completely legitimate competition or development is NOT something any of us want to encourage.
Try reading some of the links and background info before you spew pointless rants. thanks.
EOM
--
Help us build a better map!
you win.
I was specifically responding to the argument put forth by someone else which I believe isn't a very good one.
I don't believe in software patents as they stand today, but I wasn't arguing for or against this particular one.
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
Oh, you mean the secrets anyone is able to acquire from the US patent office?
"Millions" developing? This isn't IBM researching how to improve harddrive data density, this isn't DuPont researching how to create a better weed killer. This is a small company that had an idea (original or not) and patented it. In this case, it took a very small amount of time and effort to create the idea. It could easily have been some guy in the shower thinking about spherical image fields and realizing, "Hey, I bet we can use fisheye images too!".
Maybe people don't understand, or perhaps you haven't really thought enough about it.
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
Do you put commas in your IP addresses?
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
... The patent laws were created for one purpose -- to promote progress by encouraging the disclosure of inventions. ...
Unfortunately nowadays all they serve for is slowing progress by allowing companies to enforce monopolistic schemes on their technology and preventing anybody else from innovating anything if he doesn't reinvent the wheel first!
http://www.pixaround.com will probably feel it too, right? Or do they have a license for Ipix technology?
Has anyone ever done this sort of transform to map images of the heavens to flat maps?
The problem here is that stitching together images is not an "invention", it's just an application of mathematics. Just because they paid a number of people to develop it doesn't make it novel or nonobvious. They certainly have "a freedom to charge for their own honest work", but they shouldn't be able to keep others from doing similar, yet independent, work.
Any decent programmer with a book on spherical trig, some graphics experience, and the will to do it could create similar software.
This Ipix's Press release from their site at the same time.(still
available:see www.ipix.com press releases Feb 10, 1998)
JURY UPHOLDS INTERACTIVE PICTURES' PATENTS IN INFRINGEMENT CASE
Company Now Stands Alone as Provider of Fisheye-Lens-Based Immersive
Photography
OAK RIDGE, Feb. 10, 1998 - A United States District Court jury has upheld as
valid and infringed the core patent upon which IPIX immersive photography
technology is based.
The jury's decision provides court-tested validation of the company's core
patent. The jury held that Interactive Pictures Corporation has the exclusive
rights to immersive photography created with a fisheye lens. Interactive
Pictures' patented technology allows users to interact within a photographic
image. The patented technology represents the building blocks for photographic
virtual reality and three-dimensional photographic imaging.
Interactive Pictures filed suit against Infinite Pictures, Inc. of Portland,
Ore. in October of 1996. Interactive Pictures claimed that Infinite Pictures'
SmoothMove and RealWorld Navigation Design Series products infringed
Interactive Pictures', U.S. Patent No. 5,185,667. The jury found for the
plaintiff, Interactive Pictures, unanimously on all counts of the verdict and
awarded damages of $1,000,000 to Interactive Pictures. Interactive Pictures
will request entry of a permanent injunction against Infinite Pictures to
prevent further marketing of products based on the infringing technology upon
entry of the jury's verdict by the court.
"This is the first court test of our patent portfolio and the jury has stated
loud and clear that IPIX technology is pioneering, unique, and protected,"
said Jim Phillips, CEO of Interactive Pictures. "A judicially tested and
vindicated patent portfolio makes Interactive Pictures a much stronger
company and gives us a tremendous advantage in penetrating new markets and
growing our company."
As a result of the decision, Interactive Pictures is now the only company in
the United States with the rights to use a wide-angle fisheye lens to create
immersive photographs. Last September, Live Picture Corporation, which also
had been sued by Interactive Pictures for patent infringement, agreed that
the Interactive Pictures patents were valid and enforceable. Live Picture
also agreed to stop its use of fisheye lenses.
A judgement of infringement also has been entered against Bill Tillman
awarding Interactive Pictures damages of approximately $967,000. Tillman,
doing business as Graphic Effects, used the infringing Infinite Pictures
products on the World Wide Web.
IPIX immersive photography technology now stands alone in the industry,
protected by a Federal Court jury decision. The possibility of an emerging
standard in immersive photography is more likely as a result of this decision.
With IPIX images as a de-facto standard, doors are open to wider-scale
marketing of IPIX technology and growth of the company.
Steven Zimmermann, corporate fellow at Interactive Pictures and co-inventor of
the patented technology said, "It's incredibly gratifying to know that all the
hard work we did back in the early 1990's was affirmed by a jury. This is a
major recognition for all those late nights and weekends. Now we can really
accelerate this technology into the market and continue to advance it."
A computer and electrical engineering professor at the University of
Tennessee and 1978 graduate of MIT was involved in the case from the
beginning. Dr. Doug Birdwell, Ph.D. served as an expert witness at the trial
for Interactive Pictures and testified that the Infinite Pictures products
used technology that infringed on the patented IPIX technology.
Birdwell said, "The Interactive Pictures patent was a pioneering patent,
representing an enormous advance over the prior art. The infringer, Infinite
Pictures, attempted to take the heart of the IPIX technology and the jury
correctly found that this was infringement of the core Interactive Pictures
patent."
Beyond the positive impact on the strength of Interactive Pictures' patent
portfolio, the case may become a landmark in the field of patent law. This is
one of the first times that a patent infringement case has successfully been
brought against a company that used the Internet to commit acts of patent
infringement. Interactive Pictures was represented by Washington, D.C. patent
law firm Banner & Witcoff, Ltd.
By showing that Infinite Pictures sold the infringing products over the
Internet to customers in Tennessee, Interactive Pictures was able to
establish jurisdiction for the case in the United States District Court for
the Eastern Division of Tennessee. Beyond the issue of jurisdiction the
infringer, Infinite Pictures, sold the infringing product over the Internet
giving rise to one of the first cases that showed that patent infringement
occurred through the use of the World Wide Web.
Speaking of the technology's inventors, Steve Zimmermann and Dr. Lee Martin,
Phillips said, "Today, as was Thomas Edison, these inventors have been granted
a chance to profit from their labor and give their revolutionary invention an
opportunity to succeed in the marketplace."
For information, contact:
Ed Lewis, Interactive Pictures Corporation
phone: 423-482-3000
Very true! Work in radians!
:)
Or, better yet, create a new unit, called the IPIXSucks, where 4096 IPIXSucks is 360 degrees -> power of two means lots of bitshift math options!
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
even better: 361 degrees. You would have a complete view, too, and nobody would notice that 1 degree's missing.
What I don't understand is how they want to force their patents in Europe, since algorithms cannot be patented (at least not in Germany), only implementations.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
...and you were too lazy to click the post linked up top, it comes down to distributing the bigger tool without the (easily snapped-in) library, then distributing the library for people who can legally use it from a country where it's legal to do so.
The biggest change will affect PTStitcher and the
Panorama Tools. I am planning and suggesting a
procedure similar to the distribution method
of graphics programs like 'The Gimp'. This program
has to cope with GIF images and the corresponding
Unisys patent. The solution is to distribute a
basic no-GIF version of 'The Gimp'. For users in
'no-Unisys' countries ( ie where Unisys has no patent),
there is an optional plug-in to enable GIF. The download
site (which is also the main Gimp download site) is
in Finland, which happens to be such a 'no-Unisys'
country. In some countries (like Germany), the private
royalty-free use of any patent is allowed, so that
even some users in 'unisys-countries' might
be allowed to legally take advantage of this.
So on my website, there will only be a 'No_Fisheye'
version of Panorama Tools and PTStitcher (actually,
this functionality resides in the common library
pano12.dll/lib). The sources and a 'Fisheye' version
of pano12.dll/lib could then be downloaded from and to
'noipix' countries. People who want to use the
correction capabilities of Panorama Tools, or
who are using PTStitcher as a multirow-stitcher
for rectilinear images etc, ie who do not need fisheye
conversions, can then use my software
without constant threat from this fine company.
All others have to decide for themselves.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
It looks like they probably won't be around much longer, thank god.
I guess this explains why they think they can get away with a licensing scheme that is per image made, so you have to buy new keys all the time. In Norway one image costs NOK 200, or about $22.
Because qtvr is prior art.. it came out years before ipix
Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
Pardon this post if it's irrelevant (I didn't look up the patent and read it), but if I remember correctly, Quake (circa 1995?) had 360 degree "fish eye" view.
I seem to remember at college (Carnegie Mellon - we're big geeks) playing Quake CTF, and one team-mate used to guard our flag in 360deg mode.
Made it pretty hard to sneak up on him.
anyone feel like researching this and telling bountyquest?
Yes.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Not wishing to be picky - but you could make 361 degree, 720 degree images or similar, and we souldn't notice
You probably would, however, notice a nice neat line down your image :)
Does anyone else notice how many people have created something similar from scratch? What about the whole "Non-obviousness" clause? A good patent link is here: http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/patent/patentF ULL.html
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
Our beloved GIMP logo
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Back in 1999, there were a few panoramic software companies popping up. The nice thing about the development of it is that the math is pretty simple. We had a java applet panoramic image viewer that ran reasonably fast (>10fps) on pentium machines. Figuring out the math took a couple of days, and optimization only took a few weeks.
The tougher part of the problem is of course the image creation, which we used a specialized 3d rasterization pipeline to accomplish. I'm even named on a patent for some of the technology we used.
- You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!
if coding your way outta court was possible
this GentleMan could do it
ive used his tools b4,they rock !
they are solid java that does run everywhere!
and does more than ipix could every dream of
{customisable gui and a compass feature movies objects etc!!}
back in the day we didnt have no old school
http://www.albatrossdesign.com/ "ADG Panorama Tools is a straightforward software that produces 360-degree Web panoramas. It does not require plug-ins, HTML, or Java programming. The tool features auto-stitching, auto-blending, Web page auto-generation, true cylindrical view, and output images filtration."
--
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The LZW patent expires this fall. For those who don't know, patents last 17 years, not including the time span the patent is being applied for.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
are acting like Scientologists.
---
Copyright © 2002 me
Do you put spaces in your email addresses? Don't you know that commas were deprecated, oh, a couple of decades ago?
Go Kathryn Thurber!
No i did mean persecuting. They didn't prosecute Helmut - they just threatened him.
More importantly how is a patent from Europe which does not allow software patents be used to prevent the distribution of a piece of software?
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
IPIX is in death throes right now... just wait about six months and offer them $1.95 for their fish-eye conversion patent, donate it to the EFF, and go home happy.
--
All opinions presented here aren't mine.
This is a Unisys-style attempt to squeeze what ever they can out of a dry rock. They are cash strapped. despite finding some VC dumbass to invest in a barely useful technology. Anybody ever run strings on one of their binaries? That is the kind of direct actiont that could be taken to see if they have GPL code in their product. I live 15 miles from Oak Ridge and know a few people who work there. Lots of crickets chirping and surfing of head-hunter web sites.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
An article from popular science, many years ago discussed the ability to create a fish-eye view camera of a large area, like a sporting event... Then crop a small section of the picture and do some math to make it understandable. The result was the ability to send a large signal through a television screen (for instance) that a person at home could then pan and look at whatever he wanted to on the screen. I have always wanted to be able to do that. I may not be interested in the football score, but hey,check out the blond in the fifth row center.
On what grounds were you forced to stop? Do they hold the patent on 360degree views or on the technique used to make them? If its the first then do we all have to rip our eyes out cos we can turn round and look behind us without a licence from them, and if its the second, can't you just do it a different way, kind of like the way microsoft did GUI a "different way" to Apple. Not to mention don't IBM clones work the same way as IBM's bios originaly did, it was just "re-developed" with no knowledge of the original. Or am I just barking up completely the wrong tree :-)
-- Vagnerr - (www.vagnerr.com) Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Do you really think it's that good that people who gets paid with tax money can rip off and release for free products that makes businesses die?
Competition is good.
It's not a patent of 'displaying 3D images, PERIOD." It's a methodology/algorithm to display them. It's not as overreaching as you describe it, so the algorithm is either
1. Intuitive and obvious, undeserving of a patent, but therefore should be easy to circumvent, or
2. Novel and non-intuitive, which took many hours of work to develop, and they should be rewarded.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Ever heard of Adobe Acrobat? How about Apple Quicktime? Real Player? These are all successful business models with free content viewers that CHARGE FOR THE CONTENT CREATION. It's really not that hard to figure out.
I don't know the exact status of the freeness of each individual product, and yes you can get some free PDFs made, and there are sometimes ways around them, but they have all been very successful charging for some content creation while giving the viewers away for free.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
Yoou might be the one responsible for busting their patent. You may not get any money for doing so, but you will have made a contributionn to open source. I was in discussions with real estate agents in 1997 about doing this very thing, but other pursuits tied me up. I never thought about patenting it, as it seemed obvious to me at the time that others were doing it already. I feel bad this guy felt like he had to fold, because I don't think they have a leg to stand on even with a granted patent.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Actually, if you're designing wraparounds for a game or something, people might notice the slight jump in detail (these are the same people who swear they can tell the difference between 65 and 68 fps, after all). Better to make a 361 degree image, and then offer a patented 1 degree crop tool.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
check out www.westcor.com
Now, I'm not a strong advocate against software patents - I think that if I some day managed to write a brilliant piece of software, I should be rewarded properly by anyone who wanted to use that code. If I decided to give this code to individuals/universities/non-profit organisations/etc. for free, that's my call. But HOW IN THE HELL can someone be sued for writing software to accomplish a specific task?!? How can a company own licences for the concept of viewing a scenery in 360* ?
I'm puzzled.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
>, since algorithms cannot be patented (at least not in Germany), only implementations.
Isn't this exactly the the other way ? I think that algorithms could be patented and implementation couldn't because implementations are already protected by the copyright.
I think that many software companies in Europe use tricky workarounds to patent their software, but normally software isn't patentable in the european union.
Jan
is this for REAL?
great comedy company.
is this for REAL?
great comedy company.
I know it doesn't matter, because you're an anonymous pantywaste, but I thought I'd respond to your ill-formed argument anyway. A patent is granted for the sole purpose of encouraging innovation. Patent abuse is when someone takes an obvious solution to a common problem and patents it. That would be using the government's power to enforce a single company's control over an industry. What is your definition of socialism, then?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
The way I read it, they were picking on people who had independently discovered the same solution to a 360 degree display that they had. This would mean that the solution is fairly obvious to anyone who is skilled in the field, and therefore is not patentable. They deserve to be punished for having such a sloppy business model.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
If they are 'for free use', why are they so concerned about competition, then? If they didn't intend to sell this product, even at some time in the future, why did they bother patenting the methods it uses?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Let's get the filenames of the programs up here, so that they will be more easily found with Gnutella, etc. Freenet keys would be nice, too. Don't those fools at IPIX know that the surest way to get fast and wide distribution of something is to try to suppress it? Sheesh.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
Location: Brasil
Greetings,
As a related aside, I would like to mention that in Brasil, the Xerox trademark has become synonymous with photocopying, both noun and verb (xerox, xerocar). Other instances include Gillette (razor) and, to some extent, Bic (common ballpoint pen).
I believe that there is a small advantage to "being incorporated into the cultural landscape": instant (ex)brandname recognition.
I got a Nikon Coolpix 700 a couple of years ago, and it came with a IPIX viewer! After inquiring to IPIX as to the cost of the IPIX generator, I found out their license is based PER PICTURE!!! They've got to be out of their f*****g minds! I've played around with Apple's QuickTime VR 3D viewer (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/overvi ew/qtvr.html) and Dersch's Panorama tools and I've had many ideas on what to do with a Coolpix fisheye lens and the panorama software, but figured it was a matter of time before IPIX would seek and destroy everyone in it's path.
In the meantime, everyone talks about prior art, make those NO IPIX websites, blah blah blah for YEARS and what is the result? IPIX is still seeking and destroying anything which walks talks or smells like a patent infringement. And this is what gets me, IPIX goes after not just companies that produce competing software, but the USERS of the technology. That's like getting a patent on a paintbrush, and then going out and shutting down all artists until they fork up royalties PER PICTURE, NOT JUST A ONE TIME FEE people! What the f**k ever happened to the first amendment? How can it be beneficial to the people of the United States that this situation is allowed to occur in the first place?
The majority of the users of IPIX apparently are large companies. At least those are the only websites I've found that have have any significant IPIX content. IPIX is basically saying, "yeah, it's going to cost you a bundle to use this technology, and if you try anything else, we're going to sue you. What are you going to do about it?" Well, is there anything we can do about it? If there is, let's quit whining about it and do something.
I believe we better do something about this, because this per usage license could be the model of things to come. And if other companies see what IPIX is doing and the only thing geeks and other people can do is create NO IPIX websites and bitch about it on Slashdot, we'll see a LOT more per picture/playback/etc licenses in the future!
Through adversity comes creativity.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
If think it's time for some action. I suggest that a non-profit organization be setup (by a large endowment from all of you that struck it rich with Internet IPOs) whose purpose is to help OSS developers defend themselves from this rather odious form of harassment.
i wish they'd hurry up and die. their business model is unsustainable and they are predatory litigators. i hope they get what's coming soon. the more people learn about this company, the less customers ipix will have.
These guys are lamer than Amazon. I kinda think it's funny though, what would have happened if the folks at id Software would have made a patent this ludicrous on.. '3D applications'? How is code different from speech? Let's all go patent multiplication before it's too late! I'll go patent Leibniz's version of calculus while I'm at it.
RTA. Basically, what they do is host the GIF plugins on sites which do not have LZW patents. In the unpatched version of GIMP, there's a popup window that's displayed when you try to save as a GIF telling the situation and how to get GIF support.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
So why doesn't BountyQuest go after these lamers? http://www.bountyquest.com/
Anarchists never rule
http://www.armored-fire.com/glock-movie.htm
you can take out quite a few lawyers with a few of those. throw in some politicians too. someday 1's and 0's will be free--things will be tons simpler. no workarounds, no licenses, no cd-keys. the revolution may be gradual, or quick and violent. either way...load up your gun and think of a better future.
--how long till the operators are jailed for anime-induced pedophelia and
Did you read the artcile and the links?
He tells you how they do it in this e-mail. They basically provide a functional version that does not have the gif piece in it for countries where the Unisys patent is in effect. They provide a full featured version for everyone else.
Next time read!!!!
DocWatson
MessEdUp
#/var/www/v
I haven't seen the text of the patent so this may not be applicable, but cartographic projection methods may well be another example of prior art. They address the same issue: presenting a spherical surface on flat plane through controlled distortion. The inverse, photogrammetry, involves distorting flat tiles (aerial or satellite imagery) to model/recreate a 3D surface. The math dates back to the 1860s or earlier. The U.S. government released FORTRAN source code at least a decade ago. Prior enough?
Are we going post rants every single time someone defends their copyright? Do we really want to live in a world without intellectual property?
... drumroll ... the copyright laws themselves. IP laws are so restrictive that companies are able to do things like this. You can't really blame IPIX, they're just taking advantage of bad laws. The question is, do copyright laws ever get fixed, or do we spend the rest of our lives bitching?
The problem isn't really with a company protecting their copyrights. They are well within their rights to do so. The problem is
Obviously its the latter, so bitch away.
Hoping they won't sue me for swiveling my head and creating panoramic views of my bathroom,
-- If any of the above made sense, I assure it was purely by accident.
My Sony Vaio and my Olympus Camera both came with panarama stichers. For a web viewer I just use a HTML frame with a background image and a super long table (usually empty) so the image wraps automatically, the image can then be panned several times around using the scrollbar. This way there is no Plug-in to install etc.
It's pretty obvious that IPIX is bluffing since Sony distributes a web VR control, and every 3D engine known would be illegal. I'm sorry to see someone closed their website - P2P anyone?
Of course, a bigger question is: if software is speech (unfortunately, the courts don't seem to have agreed to that yet), this would be a serious form of prior restraint. Even in countries where something is patented, it's the act of using the patented invention without a license is prohibited by patent law; writing about a patented invention should be encouraged.
(Yet another big question is whether the IPIX patents should be valid in the first place; there is a lot of prior art. But I'll leave that for another time.)
What kind of argument is that ?
Even if it did not cost them a lot , still it was their idea ( unless yoo can prove otherwise)
...and you can't blame meteors for everything.
This is a link to a story from 6/3/2001 about the rise and fall of ipix. Could probably be applied to almost any inflated dot-com from the last two years. http://www.knoxnews.com/archives/browserecent/0603 2001/archives/30636.shtml
Someone mod the parent up! It's a text that every OSS developer should read and then think out a WORKING business model.
359, hell no, 361! It's the perfect pana-view system for people who wish the gain on their amp went to 11.
www.ipix.com/pro_photographer/faq/faq24.html Has iPIX sued Professor Helmut Dersch? No. Professor Helmut Dersch is not a defendant in any legal actions filed by iPIX.
Apple's QTVR is quite different from IPIX's technology, although both make panoramic scenes.
The original QTVR is a cylinder view, with limited ability to look up and down. QTVR uses multiple (12-36 usually) photographs and dynamically distorts them in the QT viewer, something like a branching-frame movie, where one can scrub back and forth (and to alternate track timelines), rather than just watch in sequence.
IPIX uses a fisheye lens (usually just two shots) and undistorts the view to make a sphere (NOT cylinder). So, they are attacking others who use the sphere, but not Apple.
This is despite the fact that prior art existed before IPIX's patent was filed. Incidently, IPIX bought the patent from a endoscopic firm (which used the technology to make pictures inside bodies for the medical field), they did not create the technology. Even worse, IPIX charges lame royalties for every IPIX picture. QTVR's are free, and the tools range from free to high end pro prices.
Also interesting is that in the new QT 5, Apple created a new technology they call Cubic VR, which maps out full up and down panoramic views on a cube rather than a cylinder or sphere. The result is no trouble from IPIX, and the earlier versions of QTVR can PLAY THEM as cylinders!
Apple rocks, IPIX sucks.
all they had to do was get it listed on slashdot. the rest will take care of itself.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
He makes these things available _free_ to advance science and art in general.
Among the things that will NOT be affected by IPIX are the ability of his software to correct for normal lens pincushion and chrominance distortion (luminance? the darkening of edges of an image), the ability to do wild and very high-resolution distortions for artistic purposes, the ability to take rectangular images and modify them so you can stitch them into a panorama (I actually have a QTVR panorama of my old studio's early days, done exclusively with Helmut's tools and hand-stitched (with no stretching) before his software helped you do that).
Going after Helmut is a crime. I am glad he is showing the same patient methodical attitude that pervades the rest of his work, and plans to work around the problem in reasonable ways.
My secret fear is that IPIX will try and push its limit, for instance attempting to muzzle Helmut entirely because his algorithms and tools CAN BE used or adapted to the fisheye case. In that event, my outrage would become unbearable- it would be a matter of suppressing the desire to go buy an uzi and HUNT THEM DOWN, and instead settling for scraping together money and paying someone to HUNT THEM DOWN LEGALLY. As in EFF, or some other likely candidate.
IPIX had better know its limits. I consider too-extensive persecution of a 'open' scientist to be an act of war. It's an act of war against the community of scientific information sharing that got all of us where we are, and I can't consider that a situation for simple workarounds. At some point you have to wage war back, whether that's through lawyers or through DOSing or through people planting rumours and destroying their company's stock price even more, or even, if the persecuted scientist is being threatened with imprisonment or violence, threatening back in kind. So far, the most extensive threat being made has been fines and imprisonment through use of the government as a weapon. In other industries (*cough* music industry *cough*) threat of physical violence has often been a quiet and unremarked additional element. Things are escalating, and if people like IPIX decide they want to start acting like the shadier sides of the music biz in their desire to stamp out all possible competition for their product, there needs to be a response ready.
I can't believe anyone would try and suppress Helmut Dersch. The question that is obviously on my mind is, how FAR will they go if unchallenged? Who else is being stepped on? And, can we be certain that all the coercive force being applied is strictly confined to narrow legal claims and patent-related demands? Record labels have often been known to use muscle in dealing with radio stations and programming- hell, Bob Marley's rise was partly reliant on just this sort of strong-arming. How do we know if companies like IPIX cross that line? And there are plenty of companies like IPIX :P
You're comparing apples and wintels. Trademarks need to be defended, otherwise they become part of the cultural landscape and can no longer be trademarked. Kleenex and Band-Aid are on the virge of that now, Xerox was on the virge 15 years ago but came back and now everyone calls it "photocopying."
All this trademark talk is interesting, but irrelevant. This isn't a case of copyright infringement either, unless the professor was dumb enough to copy IPIX's code. This is a case of patent infringement, for which there is no legal obligation to pursue, only financial. If I patent something, I can completely ignore $favorite_OS users who use my patent, but sue each and every $hated_OS user who uses my patent. The trademark law that you are vaugely familiar with isn't an issue.
Before asking whether "we really want to live in a world without intellectual property," I suggest you learn the different types of IP that are legally defined, as well as the opposing camp's arguements. For the IPIX patent, I suggest that making a 360 degree image is obvious to anyone who works with photos and as such is a Bad Patent(tm).
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Since the slashdot kiddies apparently find reading a /. blurb AND and entire article too tiring....
GIMP, by default, distributes a no-GIF-support version of the software. In countries where people can ignore (stupid) US Patents on software, there is a plugin for GIMP that adds GIF support to GIMP. This is how GIMP gets around the Unisys patent
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
What I saw in 1965 was a system of converting a single photograph taken with a fisheye lens in either up or down orientation, and produced a long strip print that gave a view of the surrounding area. You could view it as an outward view and it looked kinda funny, or stick your head in the middle and view it all around and it looked really cool.
I didn't see the actual mechanism of producing it; I only saw the original fisheye image blown up, and the resultant 360 degree connected strip. But how it was done was quite obvious to me. I saw this at the Columbus (Ohio, USA) Museum of Science and Industry. If it was patented then, it has long since expired.
I don't know if this is exactly what IPIX is claiming. But if it is, then their patents are bogus for two reasons: prior art, and utterly obvious. If IPIX is basing the life of their company on this technology, then it's a doomed company.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
As a side note, it would be of use for the patent articles to include patent references.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
At least here in Toronto, IPIX grew fast and died fast.
A couple of good friends of mine worked for them, and all got laid off last month. Sure, this has nothing to do with the patents, but it bears mentioning.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The iPix patent doesn't apply to software that does what you want -- only to software that takes 2 extremely wide angle (>180) pictures and stitches them to make a 360 panorama. Panorama Tools is being re-released without this feature.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Cute. Or make a 1080 degree image, with red, green and blue in different rotations. Yeh.
AFAIK, study and implementation of a patented device is legal, provided one doesn't try to distribute the resulting device. This is because in order to improve upon a patented device, if the device doesn't exist in a distributed form, you, as an inventor or researcher seeking to improve upon the prior art, must be able to build a device upon which to study and improve. That is what a patent is for, anyhow - to give away the details so that someone can build the device from the patent in order to study and improve upon it, furthering the pursuit (and possibly even gaining a patent in the quest)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Well, it is pretty obvious that they are in all their right. Otherwise, these lawsuits wouldn't be getting thru (or else, everyone will just start saying that Justice isn't effective).
Think about it: you pay for the right to have access to thousands of other patented technologies. Why, when it comes to software, do we always want to GPL the world? It doesn't matter that the project was about free software; we're talking about Intelectual Property here. That's why patents exist: to protect indefensive corporations from malevolous open source developers.
--
I have no sig at all.
Panorama Tools is undoubtedly the best toolset for producing panoramic imagery available today.
It is a sad day when a guy as committed to providing great software to the community as Mr. Dersch gets bullied by the U.S. Patent Office and a litigious company who have obviously failed to come up with anything as functional as Mr. Dersch's Panorama Tools.
One can only hope the European Patent Office will look a little closer at the many cases of clear prior art with regard to IPIX's patent, and then throwing it in the bin where it belongs.
Down with IPIX and incompetent patent offices.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I don't know, but it does look like every time we have an intellectual property article we're going to have a post by someone who can't distinguish between patents, copyright, and trademarks but wants to defend the poor innocent lawyer-happy corporation anyway.
the l engine found it in a couple places. rotational clue is /banc/fpbQ/ohc/gra.hqrbe.gfrenupho.anzveun//:cggu
windows and linux and viewer at that one.
-a.e.mossberg
Or is there another set of software that does photo-stitching under Linux?
Just having purchased a new digital camera, I was disappointed to learn that there was a lack of software to do the stitching under un*x. I found links to Panorama Tools (huzzah!) but saw the site was down (no!)
Well, that'll teach the good professor to write software and not release it anonymously.
I thought the whole point of a patent was that you could patent a PARTICULAR METHOD of doing something, say, making 360 degree images. Patents don't cover an entire idea! If you patent a method of creating 360 degree images, and I use a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT method to make a 360 degree image, I haven't violated your patent. Now, if they had a patent on exactly what Prof. Dersch was doing, then, well, yeah, I guess he violated the patent. If not, then what the fuck do they think they're doing?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
When have you ever seen a system that uses two fisheye lenses procuce a panoramic image. If you have, then send this proof to the prof and get this patent out of the way. Otherwise, QUIT SCREAMING "PRIOR ART"!
-no broken link
Who cares!? Degrees are stupid anyway.
The linux community should be making 2 pi radian Spin-arounds!
--Alex Fishman
using tricks similar to those needed by GIMP to avoid the Unisys GIF patents.
What sort of tricks?
What about freenet? Or putting it on Russian servers? Is linking still illegal or did they change that?
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
Let's make 359 images, nobody will notice and we'll be unaffected by the patent.
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
I just find it hard to grasp that it would take "millions of dollars" to spend to get the idea of making a 360 degree image.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Maybe there is nothing wrong with a company trying to outlaw people from continuing to use a freely available technology that the company had nothing to do with, and make it its own.
Maybe we should get rid of prior art.
Just allow any company to take any non-patented technology, and claim it as its own, and outlaw the previous users of it from continuing to use it.
Maybe we can do the equivalent in the real world. Allow any company to take over any public park, and take it over. For $20K.
IS this the world you want?!?
I sure don't!
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
What kind of tricks does GIMP use to avoid Unisys's patents?
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
How many formulas for mapping a picture taken with a fisheye lens to a certain other view? Right, there's exactly one. It's a bijective projection from fisheye-image coordinates into yourview coordinates. The desired view is defined by the application (QTVR tools). The projection is defined by the physical characteristics of the fisheye lense. There isn't a single variable in the mathematics of this transformation. If anything about transforming fisheye images into "normal" images is patentable then it must be in interpolation or coding strategies. The mapping itself is straight forward math.
Wired article here.
I work for an adult internet business ... With a little work on my hand ...
;-)
You're sure that was work on your hand?
After a couple months in development, my team was contacted by IPIX lawyers and forced to stop development.
I'm curious how the IPIX lawyers found out details of your project while in development. (Or had it been released to the public?) Did your competitors know what you were up to? Was there previous contact with IPIX? Were you putting the word out for outsourcing technology or doing press releases or anything?
You are right - QTVR does let you use any camera. This includes fisheye lenses. The cubic format gives a full 360x180 field of view. This was one of the applications of Helmut's tools. It means that you can remap fisheye images to an equirectangular imagfe suitable for turning into QTVR.
Technically, if they patented it, then the method should be fully documented in the patent, which means it is not a secret. This was the whole point of patents, to encourage people to share information while still having it be protected.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Remember how QuickTime VR works? You take a bunch of normal stills and knit them together to make the panorama view. IPIX uses two 'fisheye' lens pictures to create the panorama. Two different techniques to get the same effect.
IMHO, QuickTime VR is a nicer approach, because you can use any camera, but the fisheye approach is quicker.
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Here's a link to a review page of seven different commerical panorama software packages. I'd say IPIX has a bunch of busy lawyers.
"What are we going to do tonight, Bill?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
Wonderful humans are more complicated than any theory can explain. Money is a good motivator, I reckon. I'm fairly motivated by it myself. But is not the only one, and many times not the most powerful.
--
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
I can see isys having a patent on a particular mathematical formula for de-fishlensing an image, but surely there is more than one way to accomplish that task.
And certainly they can't have a patent on taking fishlense images and making them normal. Because that sort of thing has been going on since Panavision movie-making was developed.
And they certainly can't have a patent on stitching together images, because people been doing that since forever.
Really, all they could patent is a particular algorithm for it -- and I'm not sure they could even patent that, 'cause it's just mathematics!
WTF is up here?
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
There were rumors that IPIX would be going after QTVR and forcing them to license their *technology*...
The International Quicktime VR Association also has an anti-IPIX page at: http://www.iqtvra.org/noipix.html.
We're talking about patents! Patent law does not require them to go after people to protect their rights the way trademark law does.
And anyway, the patents themselves are extremely dubious -- it's just that no one has the resources to challenge them.
The reason they're doing this is because they have an untenable business model, and the company is run by morons (and yes I speak from personal experience).
For the only upside, take a look at their stock price -- it's hovering just above the penny-stock range, down from the mid $40's. It looks like they probably won't be around much longer, thank god.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Since the editors seem to think that the /. crowd wouldn't be interested.
Best Slashdot Co
This brings up something that I've wondered about patents. Do they really prevent a person from implementing the patent and using it for themselves. I understand if you were making a program to make the imges and then selling/distrubuting that. But if you make the program to make the images, and only you use.have that program, and instead are using/distributing the images, then is that really a violation of patent law? IANAL.
-no broken link
Patents are granted monopolies in exchange for full declaration the invention.
Those holding patents often realise that there is more money to be made licensing the patent to other companies as this tends to make their technocology wider used and a small peice of a huge pie is better than all of a tiny one. This is why Dolby are so successful, for a fee and a balanced royalty anyone can play with their stuff and thus, many do.
There is No Legal Reason why any company holding software patents cannot license them to anyone they like for or without a fee and for this precise reason Bruce Perens et al are trying to get IBM and HP to set a 'social precident' for software companies to not sue free software developers for patent infringement.
IPIX are doing themselves no favours here, if they had the foresight their monotonous press releases suggest ("IPIX, the world leader in..." play another record!), they'd allow free software folk to improve their ideas (they still own the patent underneigth and can make a killing licensing the whole shebang to camera producers).
If you have more to gain by co-operating, and less to lose by calming the legal dept down, do it! Otherwise you'll just find many of those you most want to embrace IPIX stuff won't touch it with a barge pole. They already seem to prefer the other method of stitching images together to get panoramas.
Cluetrain anyone?
GPhoto - Free Digital Camera Software
From a message sent by Helmut Dersch (url http://listserv.fh-furtwangen.de/cgi-bin/lwgate/cg i/lwgate-en-proj.cgi/PROJ-IMIM/archives/proj-imim. archive.0106/Date/article-66.html):
I do not want to comment on your questions but want to emphasize that no one has yet accused PTViewer of infringing any patents. There are many viewers out there which use similar technology and I am not aware of any ipix patent that could possibly apply.
[snip]
Another point: I did not receive the warning from ipix but from a person who is currently being treated by them and their lawyers. I am not authorized to mention details. I hope there is no immediate danger, neither for him nor for us, but it makes sense to be cautious, hence the proposed changes.
WHONEEDSSLEEPWHENWEHAVECAFFINE?!
---
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Courts PRESUME any patent which is granted is valid. The plantiff has to prove infringement, but if he does, than the defendant needs to prove the patent is invalid to win. The plaintiff does NOT have to prove anything about the validity, it is considered valid by default because it has been so carefully (hah!) reviewed by the patent office. (i.e. they glance at the title, and make sure it is paid for before rubber stamping it).
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
IPIX has been involved in several tangled intellectual-property disputes. In '97, IPIX went after the Live Picture Corporation for patent infringement, and eventually secured an out-of-court settlement resulting in Live Picture's agreement to stop using fisheye lenses.
IPIX was also the defendant in a March 2000 patent infringement suit involving alleged willful infringement of U.S. patent 5,903,782 concerning "spherical visual technology".
If anyone is interested, I threw up a page a while back that contains more information about IPIX-related intellectual property disputes.
Sincerely,
Vergil
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
I dug up a quote of Dan Slaters from http://vr.albury.net.au/~kathyw/EyePics/slater.tx
I find IPIX's actions to be far more infuriating and monopolostic than anything that Micro$oft has ever done... These people are basically saying that the only way you are going to use 360 images on the web is if you use their software and pay their fees.
m l for more of IPIX's heavy-handed tactics.
Prior-Art exists for the patents that they are trying to enforce... someone should step in (EFF? O'Reilly?) and challenge these patents.
For now, we can make an impact on IPIX... boycott them!
Also, check out http://vr.albury.net.au/~kathyw/EyePics/ or http://www.virtualproperties.com/noipix/noipix.ht
Sorry I'm not more coherent, but this really pisses me off.
Will they have to take their Pathfinder images down too?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Call IPIX or drop them an email and ask them why they are picking on OSS developers:
Stu Roberson
iPIX
3160 Crow Canyon Road, 4th floor
San Ramon, CA 94583
ph: (925) 242.4050
Email: stu.roberson@ipix.com
Missy Acosta
Ackermann Public Relations
1111 Northshore Drive, Suite N-400
Knoxville, TN 37917-4046
Phone: (865) 584.0550
Fax:(865) 588.3009
Email: macosta@ackermannpr.com
Cathy Hay
Morgen-Walke
380 Lexington Ave
New York, NY
Phone: (212) 850-5679
Email: chay@morgenwalke.com
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I work for an adult internet business that shall remain nameless...A little over a year ago we were working to differentiate ourselves from other adult site's offerings. With a little work on my hand, we developed 3d panoramic software to explore the mystical regions on the beautiful nude form (our site is upscale and we cater to both men and women, so it took some work to optimize viewing for the various body types). After a couple months in development, my team was contacted by IPIX lawyers and forced to stop development. They offered us the option of licensing technology through them, but the cost benefit just wasn't there.
It's a shame to see creativity online stifled by overly restrictive business practices by those online. Our company has been forced to use more traditional offerings for our site- mediocrity is now being prescribed by unnecessary and unjust patents enforced by the legal systems of the world.
iluvpr0n. (really)
They are bluffing. This is known art, and they know it. Call them on it.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Still annoyed by their audacity, if you can't tell.