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USPTO Approves Amazon Patent For Taking Pictures
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Patent Office granted Amazon a patent in March that basically describes taking a picture with a white background. Amazon claims that their method is unique to current photography methods because they can achieve the effect of a true white background without retouching the photo or using any sort of post-processing technique. Some professional photographers disagree, claiming that plenty of prior art exists embodying Amazon's described method and furthermore that this pre-existing method is what the photography industry calls 'shooting against a seamless white backdrop.'"
Seriously. Did the examiner on this even consider asking anyone who knows anything about photography? I'm not a photographer but I've had my picture taken for "promotional" reasons and already knew about this. I've even created a similar setup here when posting stuff online.
Took me 10 seconds to find this page:
http://www.raydobbins.com/phot...
What, exactly, are they trying to "patent" and why does this examiner still have a job? It's obvious that we need to have crowdsourcing prior art as an official part of the patent process.
Do you have ESP?
fees are $0.01 per use.
That means my patent for taking photo images with the subject in the foreground of a solid green motif backdrop will surely be approved!
The way I breathe air and take it into my body is unique. You all have to stop breathing, okay? Or pony up.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Is it going to take violence to get things fixed?
Seriously. The only thing that's going to accomplish anything anymore is outright violence. Maybe then 'the people who need to know' (whoever they are) will start taking notice at the bullshit that's going on in our patent system (hell, any dysfunctional system). Talk doesn't work. Diplomacy doesn't work. The democratic process no longer works. Peaceful protest doesn't work. What else is there? These patents are directly attacking damn near everyone in commercial and professional photography. And when a bullshit patent is used to attack a person's livelihood or their means of supporting their family or their passion, and the result can leave them destitute, how is that any different than a violent attack against that person?
Patenting something like this with this much prior art (fuck photography, anyone who has ever applied 3 point lighting and used the plain white background in 3d studio project preferences has prior art) is outright bullshit.
> It's obvious that we need to have crowdsourcing
> prior art as an official part of the patent process.
Damn you, sir, I was going to patent that idea!
I did a very similar thing this past Christmas. I used a white sheet and put a very bright white light bulb behind it. We were dressing up with funny hats and such with the family. It seemed like a very obvious thing to do to get a white background to me. I am no photographer... I just was wanting a nice white background.
I'm sure you could mail your payment to Amazon or possibly use a credit card but don't use a 1-click system or other charges may apply.
Prior art only exists when it's one of the big guys trying to invalidate or ignore a commoner's patent.
Have patents always been this broad? it sounds as if they were devised to cover *physical* objects which were non-obvious and all that.. but that train of thought has been lawyered (mutilated) to extend to things like math (software), genes, and god damn geometric shapes or colors.
I can't wait to patent my revolutionary technique of taking a dump while sitting down.
What's with the blockquote text being #888888? Why not make it #FFFFFF and have done with it? Fucking asshole.
I've got one of those no-horizon white backdrop things, cheapo-style. I saw a big one at a photographer's studio that you could put a whole family on for a portrait. I thought it would be a good idea for shooting ebay stuff, so I "made" one by partially rolling up a large sheet (#102 on the patent diagrams) of white cardstock. And lights. I borrowed everyone's bedside lamps (106, 107, 115, 117) in the house. I just figured I was stealing a standard photographic technique. Didn't occur to me that the photographer whose studio technique I cribbed was one of those unknown geniuses who didn't know what a gold mine he was sitting on.
I am not a crackpot.
The formula for trolling slashdot is simple.
1) Find a recent patent given to a big company
2) Dumb down the claims to the point of being trivial and nearly unrelated to the actual legal bounds of the patent
3) Sit back and enjoy the endless stream of people claiming prior art exists while:
c) not actually pointing out anything specific
b) the prior art is comically NOT prior art
Please, let's not feed the trolls by following this formula.
You're still breathing, eh? So you've illegally inhaled my patented fart-o-grams released since 1999... I'll take cashiers checks and non-poisonous candy.
Give them a motivation to actually try to make a half-decent effort at weeding out the obvious and not evaluating patents related to domains they clearly have not got a damned clue about.
There are two possibilities.
1) They're using it for purely defensive purposes.
2) Either it's broad enough to be dangerous to others doing anything similar, or someone else could go and get a bunch of patents on slight variations of light positioning, ISO level, aperture, etc.
In the case of 1, the problem is that it's basically obvious and shouldn't have been patentable. In the case of 2, professional product photographers are in trouble.
Soon, someone will patent the alphabet, and we'll have to pay by the keystroke.
Have to wonder what the Europeans and the rest of the civilized world thinks of this embarrassing news.
Simply shameful path this country is on...
This is NOT a big deal. The patent is very specific, to the point where it would be almost impossible to infringe (and equally difficult to find prior art). They didn't patent "take a picture with a white background.". They patented having a studio arrangement with a background comprising a white cyclorama, captured with an 85mm lens, configured with an ISO settings of 320 and f-stop value of 5.6, with an elevated platform positioned between the platform and background, with front and rear light sources in the longitudinal axis... and it goes on for several pages.
There is NO WAY anyone will be hurt by this patent. It's business as usual. I know you guys love getting mad at big companies, but cool it, you just look silly.
My original Canon Digital Rebel had a feature, where you would shoot a white/neutral item, like a white sheet of paper or a grey card, and the camera would auto-set the white balance based off this. This feature is in many digital cameras. What kind of people does the USPTO hire, that they can not even spot obvious and common cases of prior art, like this? The USPTO does not need reform. It need to be burnt to the ground, and restarted from scratch. I do not think the existing system works,or is salvageable.
A picture with a white background... sounds like what we've been doing for DECADES, to take ID pictures and what not.
This is my cue to remind you that the US is a cesspool of corruption. Indeed, one can only assume that someone is at this moment patenting a system whereby a politician may be bribed anonymously to allow patenting of the concept of corruption.
every single studio has a cyke exactly like this set up. if amazon ever tries to exercise this i'm sure the full weight of the Majors will come down quick
The patent is actually for taking a photo on a seamless white background with one click. So, yeah, totally legit. :-)
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Start
Activate Rear Light Source
Activate Front Light Source
Position Subject
To evade the patent, you could switch on both lights at once!
Or you could position the subject before you turn on all the lights!
Or you could vary the order in many other ways. It's a really stupid patent because it's so easy to evade.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
This is one of the most basic lighting setups used in photography. It's one of the most common setups there is, and is also one of the first setups a photographer is likely to learn. It's a very old technique.
It's sort of like patenting the application of ink to paper using a pen.
Now that the US is "first to file" and not "first to invent," prior art is completely irrelevant.
soon-to-be-approved patent on patenting patently stupid patent applications.
1. A studio arrangement, comprising: a background comprising a white cyclorama; a front light source positioned in a longitudinal axis intersecting the background, the longitudinal axis further being substantially perpendicular to a surface of the white cyclorama; an image capture position located between the background and the front light source in the longitudinal axis, the image capture position comprising at least one image capture device equipped with an eighty-five millimeter lens, the at least one image capture device further configured with an ISO setting of about three hundred twenty and an f-stop value of about 5.6; an elevated platform positioned between the image capture position and the background in the longitudinal axis, the front light source being directed toward a subject on the elevated platform; a first rear light source aimed at the background and positioned between the elevated platform and the background in the longitudinal axis, the first rear light source positioned below a top surface of the elevated platform and oriented at an upward angle relative to a floor level; a second rear light source aimed at the background and positioned between the elevated platform and the background in the longitudinal axis, the second rear light source positioned above the top surface of the elevated platform and oriented at a downward angle relative to the floor level; a third rear light source aimed at the background and positioned in a lateral axis intersecting the elevated platform and being substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis, the third rear light source further positioned adjacent to a side of the elevated platform; and a fourth rear light source aimed at the background and positioned in the lateral axis adjacent to an opposing side of the elevated platform relative to the third rear light source; wherein a top surface of the elevated platform reflects light emanating from the background such that the elevated platform appears white and a rear edge of the elevated platform is substantially imperceptible to the image capture device; and the first rear light source, the second rear light source, the third rear light source, and the fourth rear light source comprise a combined intensity greater than the front light source according to about a 10:3 ratio.
If you did all that, then yes, Amazon should sue you.
They don't do that stuff any more. They check that it fits the rules for submissions, collect the fee and leave it to courts to sort out validity, prior art etc.
It's called "running government like a business". The patent office makes their money and do not give a shit that it's a drain on the economy to move the service they used to perform to the courts.
And I'll patent taking a photo in morning fog while sunlight is reflecting off the bottom of clouds.
"how to" patents were invalid.. ya know, like swinging sideways and such.
where's the physical product being patented? a light.. a flash reflector.. anything?
positioning items in a certain way in a room to take a picture is NOT A PATENTABLE concept.
and oh, by the way, photographers have been using similar setup for decades....
amazon loves the white backdrop for its online storefront because they can compress the hell out of those images.. but here's a tip, amazon... for some things, though, such as clothing, bodies floating on a page, or with their heads cut off, are NOT THE BEST WAY TO PRESENT A PRODUCT. a light or neutral background color that complements the model (with head attached!) and/or item(s) is much more aesthetically pleasing than plain white backdrop or chopped off heads. (and dont get me started on the morons that butcher the shit out of catalog shots to 'erase' a background)
And... Will there be a patent on one-click photos?
Says the company who sued for breaching their obvious "one-click patent".
We can also trust them to correct benefits to employees in their distribution centers, right?
Does anyone have the details for the examiner who approved this? I also have a pretty unique idea that might get past him. Regularly I take 2 slices of bread and put various fillings into it. I might even name this food preparation process after myself.
I have been a professional studio photographer for the past thirty years. Photographers have been shooting objects and people on plain white backgrounds since well before the arrival of Amazon, or even the introduction of desktop computers (see Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, David Bailey, albert Watson for starters). If Amazon ever tries to bring an action the defendant will have no trouble proving the patent should not have been issued. What is Amazon going to claim next? A patent that explains how to turn off the background lights in order to create a black background?
The patentis just part of the corporate process
1.Patent is obtained for something.
2.Small competitors are sued for infringing patent , which they can't afford to defend so they remove their version from the market.
3. Competitors gone.
Wait, read this and you won't have to read any other posting re: this story (or almost any other patent-related story on Slashdot). Watch, it works:
1. Slashdot summary: "[[Apple,Google,Microsoft,etc.]] has [[filed, been granted]] a patent for [[performing a painfully obvious task]]".
Posting #1: "Here is yet another example of why the patent system is broken!! People have been [[performing the painfully obvious task]] for years!"
Excruciating # of confirmatory, patronizing responses from people who could not understand the patent if they read it. (They didn't.)
Posting #2: "Now there's an examiner who is not doing his job. How long would it take to find prior art that discloses [[the painfully obvious task]]?????
Excruciating # of confirmatory, outraged, and condescending responses from people who have no idea what occurred during the prosecution of this patent.
Posting #3: "Hah! I'm pretty smart because it took me only 30 seconds to Google this page: [[link to a site where somebody practices the painfully obvious task with no date of initial disclosure.]]
Excruciating # of confirmatory ... you get the idea.
Actual patent:
i) Abstract describes a procedure that can be interpreted to include variations of the painfully obvious task. (Of course, it's the claims, not the abstract that defines the subject matter of a patent, and abstracts are often not updated as the claims are amended".
ii) Independent claims describe an impossibly narrow embodiment of [[the painfully obvious task]] that was likely negotiated in order to obtain the patent because the Examiner did indeed raise the same issues noted by the Slashdot genius posters.
Conclusion: The patent does not claim [[the painfully obvious task]]. Result = several thousand words of self-congratulatory masturbatory postings that accomplish nothing other than to make their posters look lazy, ignorant, or stupid. Sigh.
Solution: If this is upsetting, hey, it's not too late to try to educate yourself to the point where you might have something intelligent to say in response to Slashdot's next patent faux news story. Take 90 seconds to read the first claim of the patent in question and see what subject matter it _really_ claims. Even just the first independent claim.
In this case, the first claim covers only shooting setups that includea camera with an 85mm lens, an ISO setting of about 320, and an f-stop of about 5.6, where the combined light intensity of four rear lights is greater than the intensity of a front light by a ratio of about 10:3, and many other elements that, in combination, describe an insanely narrow embodiment.
Clearly, such a claim has little value from a licensing or infringement-response standpoint and bears little relationship to the way it's characterized in the Slashdot story. Most likely, this claimwas the result of a negotiation that occurred because an Examiner was doing his or her job, and allowed Apple to obtain a patent only through such narrowing. I'm only guessing, but most likely the only reason Apple prosecuted it to issuance was to bump its statistics by one grant and because it had likely already invested a lot of money into the prosecution effort.
In a nutshell: Anybody can patent anything they want, if the subject matter of the patent is so insanely narrow that it doesn't preclude anything that has been done before or that would be obvious to combine. This is true even if the resulting patent has no true value to the patentee. That's the case here. The description in the Slashdot story and the outraged responses by the posters spectacularly misinterpret the patent to mean exactly the opposite.
I hate to say it, but if you're not a lawyer, you have no fucking right to think that you understand what a patent actually means unless you're willing to spend a little time to educate yourself about patent-language conventions and to then spend the time to actually *read* and understand the patent in question. There shouldn't be an I in IANAL. Sure, some lawyers may be reprehensible, but people who think that they can do the work of a lawyer simply because they know how to code in C++ are far worse.
http://slashdot.org/submission... oh nevermind
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