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Israeli Company Sues Apple Over Dual-Lens Cameras In iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus (macrumors.com)
Corephotonics, an Israeli maker of dual-lens camera technologies for smartphones, has filed a lawsuit against Apple this week alleging that the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus infringe upon four of its patents. Mac Rumors reports: The patents, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office between November 2013 and June 2016, relate to dual-lens camera technologies appropriate for smartphones, including optical zoom and a mini telephoto lens assembly: U.S. Patent No. 9,402,032; U.S. Patent No. 9,568,712; U.S. Patent No. 9,185,291; U.S. Patent No. 9,538,152. Corephotonics alleges that the two iPhone models copy its patented telephoto lens design, optical zoom method, and a method for intelligently fusing images from the wide-angle and telephoto lenses to improve image quality. iPhone X isn't listed as an infringing product, despite having a dual-lens camera, perhaps because the device launched just four days ago.
It all depends on how they actually managed to intelligently merge images in the optical assembly. It seems strange though it's not as though nobody else does similar things. It would be like stepping on a GIF patent when there's a perfectly acceptable PNG you could have used to accomplish the same thing.
Can someone tell us why this (https://www.dpreview.com/articles/9094527764/kodakv570) is not a clear prior art (and probably covered by Kodak patents)? Because by reading the claims in their patent I don't see the real difference