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Microsoft Seeks Patent For "Search By Sketch"

Posted by samzenpus on from the composite-search dept.

theodp writes "So, how does one search for images that aren't tagged with keywords? Google does offer its sometimes-spotty search by image, but what if you don't have an image handy that looks like what you're searching for? Microsoft, reports GeekWire, offers a solution that's 'a little like playing Pictionary with a search engine — drawing a sketch and seeing if the algorithm can return pictures that match it.' That's the concept behind Microsoft Research's patent-pending 'MindFinder' project, which has already been incorporated into a Windows Phone app called Sketch Match. A patent application made public Thursday notes that touch computing makes sketching easier than ever, making one wonder if we'll be 'giving Bing the finger' with Windows 8!"

6 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Already Done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Already done here for LaTex symbols: http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html

    Please please please don't approve the patent. I haven't read it, but according to the summary there's nothing new about it.

  2. Re:Interesting concept, but... by zill · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sounds like you're talking about Google Goggles.

  3. Rtriever by cyrano.mac · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rtriever has been doing exactly the same thing since 2006. http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/

  4. Prior art by IBM? by Tal+Cohen · · Score: 3, Informative

    I remember IBM DB2 ads from the 90s about, well, sketch-based DB searches. IBM called it "Query by Image Content", or QBIC. It was easy to find one using Google Books -- in this case, CIO Magazine, Sept. 1, 1995: http://books.google.com/books?id=AAcAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA25&ots=GGDbllo74W&dq=ibm%20db2%20ad%20bottle%20%22perfect%22&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false

    --
    - Tal Cohen
  5. Patent will be invalid - It's been done before by Etylowy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Patent is invalid if there is prior art. Well, imgSeek has had that function since at least 2008 (can't find changelog for desktop version - it might have been there already in 2006).

  6. Probably not as simple as it seems by Miros · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is probably not as simple as Microsoft trying to patent something which has already been done before. You may want to check out some of the actual research they have done here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/mindfinder/ I seriously doubt that they are not familiar with all of the prior art examples that have been brought up here, and they would not have spent the money on a patent if they did not think they had improved on the existing methods sufficiently for it to stand up to even basic scrutiny.