
Amazon granted patent for taking photos against a white background - edandersen
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&S1=08676045&OS=PN/08676045&RS=PN/08676045
======
afternooner
I like how all the comments so far are defending the fact that the patent
isn't quite as broad as the title suggests. Sure, they are patenting taking a
picture against a white background when perpendicular against a... Who gives a
fuck. This is a patent to take a picture against a whit background. There is
no invention here. The only thing novel or unique is the fact is that some
genius realized that with enough legal terms, you could patent a photo shoot.
Shit America, get it together.

~~~
higherpurpose
Apparently, approving such patents makes the USPTO "efficient", by getting rid
of the backlog (as if that should be the main goal of the Patent Office?!):

[http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140505/11310627129/yes-
pr...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140505/11310627129/yes-president-
obamas-patent-office-started-approving-basically-all-patent-applications-
again.shtml)

You know what would make USPTO even _more efficient_ than approving almost
everything? _Rejecting_ almost everything.

~~~
bo1024
Unfortunately not, because when applications are rejected, the lawyers simply
change some parts and send them back in. The only way to get rid of an
application forever (as far as I know) is to accept it.

~~~
josaka
It doesn't fully contradict your point, but FWIW, Applicants do have to pay
the USPTO $1,200 to $1,700 (with some exceptions) every other time they send
the application back in. And of course, "changing some parts" typically
involves reducing the scope of rights you're seeking, which most folks would
regard as progress for the public's interest.

~~~
salem
That is peanuts to a large firm who has now pushed a large legal burden on
it's competitors. If this is about saving money and clearing the backlog, then
the government is externalizing the cost back to the tech industry.

------
jimrandomh
Primary Examiner: Blackman; Rochelle-Ann J. Other patents by the same
examiner: [http://patents.justia.com/examiner/rochelle-ann-j-
blackman](http://patents.justia.com/examiner/rochelle-ann-j-blackman)

It is the examiner's job to reject patents which aren't innovative, and that
clearly hasn't happened here.

~~~
krick
Funny. Looking at that list I start wondering how that really can happen. Yes,
I know that jurisprudence is BS, there's no such thing as justice, etc., but
_really_. I mean, looking at this list makes it so obvious that something
isn't right, that I don't understand how she can have a job. That is, it
couldn't be that examiner's work isn't overviewed/supervised by other
instances, could it? If so, why Ms. Blackman haven't lost her job yet? Why
nobody questioned her examination cases? Or maybe she _is_ doing it right and
it's only hard to understand if your brain isn't spoiled by law education? Can
somebody explain?

~~~
u124556
Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO? Do US Government
agencies have any politics about the general public concerned with the work of
the individuals working there?

What about other examiners?

~~~
sillysaurus3
_Why nobody is showing concerns about her to the USPTO?_

This feels a little too close to being a witchhunt. Once we start talking
about "why isn't the internet reporting these people to their employers?" the
conversation has stopped being about ideas.

EDIT: The concerns seem justified. I'm just saying that maybe we shouldn't be
trying to use HN to organize the end of individual careers.

Calling attention to the fact that this patent was examined by particular
individuals seems ok. It's just a fact.

Using HN as an organizational vehicle to help angry people on the internet get
some specific people fired, by name, would be a troubling new trend for HN.
We're a community, not a task force.

~~~
thaumasiotes
It's an ugly trend, sure. But I think there's something to be said for
reporting people to their employers _when your concern is that they 're doing
their job badly_, where "badly" here might be read as "incompetently" or
"perniciously".

How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up
arrestees? What about taking bribes?

If reporting a cop for taking bribes is OK, why is reporting a patent examiner
for awarding a patent in the face of prior art bad?

What about reporting a clerk to their manager for speaking to you rudely? Not
only does this happen all the time, I don't see a lot of people saying hey,
lay off the rude clerks.

edit: a pair of summary examples:

"X is a satanist". This doesn't impact X's performance as a patent officer, or
really anything else.

"X couldn't recognize prior art if it was disclosed in the patent
application". This directly impacts performance as a patent officer, and can
properly be reported to X's employer.

~~~
sillysaurus3
_How do you feel about filing complaints against cops for, say, beating up
arrestees? What about taking bribes?_

Oh, there's no question: I love being beaten by police officers! And bribery
is good for the soul, don't you think?

Seriously though, using HN as a way of organizing large numbers of people to
action against specific employees is probably stepping a bit too far. That's
almost the very definition of an internet witchhunt. Getting these people
fired won't fix the underlying problems.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
I'd agree that HN isn't the place generalized advocacy and that the same
should be actively discouraged if it happens more than rarely, but, for
specific cases such as this one, HN users have a relevant and appropriate
interest. Technology patents directly affect HN users' lives and businesses.
Furthermore, HN users are particularly well-suited to have educated and well-
informed opinions on this particular matter; much more so than most of the
general public. It is such an obscure area that interested parties cannot
reasonably expect the general public to properly protect their interests.

So, if not here on HN, then where?

~~~
nitrogen
* So, if not here on HN, then where?*

If you are referring to a vindictive mob singling out a low-ranking individual
for mob justice, _nowhere_. That's about as far from the hacker ethos and the
principles of a functional society as one can get.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>If you are referring to a vindictive mob singling out a low-ranking
individual for mob justice, nowhere.

It sounds really terrible when you say it like that.

~~~
tripzilch
Well, if it wasn't for all the people in this thread valiantly defending the
status quo, we'd be about _this_ close to literally burning some innocent
individual at the stake.

That's certainly worth a few frivolous patents, don't you think?

------
josephlord
This appears to be the broadest claim at a quick glance. If you do at least
one thing different to this I believe you would not be covered:

 _2\. A studio arrangement, comprising: a background comprising a 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 background; an image capture position located between the
background and the front light source in the longitudinal axis; an elevated
platform positioned at a first distance from the elevated platform and between
the image capture position and the background along the longitudinal axis, the
front light source being directed toward the elevated platform; a first at
least one rear light source positioned between the elevated platform and the
background, the at least one rear light source directed towards the
background; a second at least one rear light source positioned in a lateral
axis intersecting the elevated platform and being substantially perpendicular
to the longitudinal axis; at least one light shield positioned between the
second at least one rear light source and the elevated platform, the at least
one light shield configured to shield the elevated platform from light emitted
directly from the second at least one rear light source from lighting an upper
surface of the elevated platform; and wherein a top surface of the elevated
platform reflects light emanating from the background such that the elevated
platform appears a substantially similar color as the background and a rear
edge of the elevated platform is substantially imperceptible to an image
capture device positioned at the image capture position._

Claim 1 (the only other independent claim) seems much narrower so that if you
aren't using an 85mm lens AND some particular settings of the camera you
wouldn't be covered.

Note: I am not taking a position on the validity or use of this patent just
that the title[0] of this thread seems to be something of an extreme
simplification to me.

[0] "Amazon granted patent for taking photos against a white background" (in
case it changes).

~~~
makomk
That's not necessarily true - thanks to the doctrine of equivalents, even if
what you're doing doesn't fall under the literal scope of the patent claims
you could still be infringing on it. (What's more, whether you're potentially
infringing also depends on _how exactly_ those limitations came to be in the
patent claim.)

------
rjdagost
The abstract sounds far-reaching, but for patents the claims are what matter.
And the claims of this patent are extremely narrow. It shouldn't be difficult
to sidestep these. My general rule is that if you see specific numbers in the
claims ("eighty-five millimeter lens", " configured with an ISO setting of
about three hundred twenty", etc.) you probably have a pretty weak patent.

~~~
tizzdogg
Would it be valid for me to submit my own patent application, with the exact
same wording as amazon's, but substituting "50mm lens" in place of "85mm
lens"?

I dont know how patent law works, so I'm honestly asking.. if the narrowness
of the claims makes it okay, wont we eventually end up with hundreds of
patents covering the entire space of possible configurations?

~~~
euank
Patent law requires something to be "non-obvious". It cannot be a single step
away from a previous patent. This patent would count as prior art for such an
obvious change, and as such the patent you describe would not be valid or
granted.

Non-obvious is supposed to be a broad term, but in reality a patent examiner
will just search through prior patents for prior art. In this case, if you
really did copy everything else word for word, he or she would very quickly
find the existing patent and deny you.

------
nopinsight
I've long wondered if this is the result of measuring the Patent Office's
staff productivity by the number of patents granted per staff or working
hours. Higher 'productivity' by such metrics could lead to higher budget or
promotional opportunities for their managers, for example. Such things would
skew their processes and judgment to allow for more patents being granted,
while benefiting most internal decision makers.

If anyone knows the metrics/KPI used internally and by the governing body of
the Patent Office, please let us know. It could help point to some ways to
reform the system in the short term (without needing to go through Congress).

We could create a proposal to reform the system by changing their internal KPI
and penalize the Patent Office and individual examiners when too many of the
patents they grant are not held up by court or judged by an independent
committee to be inappropriate, for example. (The penalty should be strong
enough to counterweight the benefits they gain from granting more patents.)
This should not require Congress action and the Executive branch can start a
reform quite quickly.

------
mnicky
Here's discussion on patents.stackexchange:
[http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/6543/photography-...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/6543/photography-
lighting-amazon-issued-patent-prior-art-request)

------
a3n
There's a small voice, way way in the back of my head, that's wondering if
corporations are in the beginning of a campaign to reserve everything doable
and expressable to themselves.

That sounds ridiculous, except ... well, patents like this, and the apparent
willingness of the Patent Office to grant anything that can be said on an
application.

~~~
ISL
The silver lining to broad patents: very soon, all those broad patents are
usable as prior art.

~~~
a3n
And the dark cloud behind that: Congress selling patent extensions to the
highest bidder. Although I suppose it's eventually going to devolve to
Congress being on retainer.

------
HillOBeans
I have noticed several comments mentioning prior art as a defense against
absurd patents. With the recent passage of the America Invents Act, the United
States is now a "first to file" country, not a "first to invent". If you do
invent something new, you basically have only one year's time to get a patent
application filed before running the risk of losing it to another filer
(provided you have publicly demonstrated or sold your invention).
Demonstrating that you invented the product first will do you no good. It is
possible to extend this by a second year by filing a Provisional Patent
Application (a much simpler, less expensive filing that only grants patent
pending protection for a year until you file an official patent application).
On the surface the AIA was intended to make obtaining patents easier for the
layperson, but the expense of filing with the USPO actually makes it much more
difficult for the lay inventor to defend themselves against a large entity
with money and lawyers. It also encourages inventors to hide rather than
demonstrate their ideas, lest someone else file a patent application first....

~~~
noonespecial
First to file merely does away with the battles between inventors both trying
to file for the same invention claiming and trying to prove that they invented
it at some time prior to filing. First to file does not effect prior art and
things that are already public domain. You can't just cruise on over to github
and pick a FOSS project and be "first to file".

------
Zigurd
From the detailed description, this is the problem they say they are solving:

> _Prior art solutions for achieving such a result for capturing images and
> /or video of objects set against a true white background include solutions
> that often involve some type of image retouching, post processing, "green
> screen" techniques, or other special effects and image and video
> manipulation to achieve the result of an object set against a true white
> background. Accordingly, as will be described herein, embodiments of the
> present disclosure provide a studio arrangement in which an object can be
> photographed and/or filmed, and the images and/or video captured by the
> camera achieve the effect noted above without any image manipulation due to
> the particular arrangements of the subject, camera, lighting and background.
> _

First of all, that's not true. You can buy various products _on Amazon_ that
do the thing they think they are solving.

Secondly, while other people have noted that to fit the coverage of their
claim #1, you would have to be using a particular length lens, etc. They are
just describing a typical portrait studio configuration. There is nothing
novel about the configuration they are describing. Not the focal length, not
the aperture, not backlighting to prevent objects throwing shadows, etc. Not
one novel problem or solution.

The patent they refer to, 20030206735, is a patent for one such device, a
lighting box. This patent refers to a previous Amazon patents for
photographing against a white background. This previous patent appears even
less novel and appears to be patenting lighting a backdrop to eliminate
shadows. The other patents referred to seem to be irrelevant.

While I doubt the lighting box patent is really novel, at least there is a
_thing_ they are patenting. Both Amazon patents are patenting an arrangement
of bog standard lights, backdrops, and cameras, arranged in obvious ways.
There is no invention, no _thing_ in these patents. If you still had to make
patent models, the model would be... nothing!

------
funkyy
Its not about how narrow patent is - its still picture on white background.
Such a picture with this specs might be done for art (picture art is huge part
of modern culture) and afaik law prohibits patenting art... I feel sorry if
anyone breaks the patent by mistake and will get nice letter from Google that
they need to get rid of their picture...

~~~
mrestko
Why would they get a letter from Google?

------
VonGuard
I get sick of people fretting over stupid patents. Take matters into your own
hands and invalidate these fuckers. I think I found some prior art just
Googling around:

[https://www.google.com/patents/US7177537?dq=automated+photog...](https://www.google.com/patents/US7177537?dq=automated+photography&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Rk1uU86FBsf4oASdsoDoDQ&ved=0CF8Q6AEwBg)

Frankly, this patent is even broader than Amazon's, as it includes support for
multiple background colors, and it allows for the lights to be anywhere, as
opposed to some specific position Amazon delineated.

~~~
crashandburn4
The thing I'd like to know is, is there anything that we can do for this? you
found the prior art quickly, so it is clear that the patent should not be
valid but is there anything citizens can do to point this out? is there any
way of invalidating a patent once it's been awarded short of legal action?

As far as I know there is no recourse other than legal action (which is
incredibly costly) once a patent has been granted which I think is part of the
problem of these ridiculous patents being granted in the first place.

------
yawz
The US patent system must be a money making scheme because it looks like (at
least to my untrained eye) they're granting patents for anything. I thought
the original idea was to patent inventions. Huh!

------
transfire
So we can patent camera and lighting angles now?

~~~
pasbesoin
This is similar to my reaction: A patent for a focal length and ISO setting?
How is this innovative?

Particular settings for otherwise standard set ups, do not seem to me to meet
the bar. What's next: Patenting key strike patterns on our keyboards?

~~~
X4
happened already ;) remember the guy who patented smileys? (it was unapproved
later)

I don't know, am I morally wrong if I don't give a fu __about patents, but
honor and credit the original founder, IF I copy things? I mean like we 've
been thought in practice with CC

------
acomjean
"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"

crazy. But very specific in some ways. 85mm lens is a great lens for this
stuff and portraits. I see sales of the 90mm tilt shit increasing..

The diagram shows a person as a product. There is a lot of prior art out there
for a lot of lighting setups, often diagrammed.

If you want to take better flash pictures may I humbly suggest
[http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/](http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/)

------
ZenPro
Admittedly I only did a couple of years of law school before switching but...

...surely any evidence of _prior use_ of the patent arrangement to the patent
is a get-out clause for anyone being charged with infringement.

I can claim originality of a printing press all I want right up until someone
can prove a printing press as I designed it existed prior to my design.

90% of patent investigation is finding _anything_ even remotely close to what
you are being taken to court for infringing.

I am certain a whole repository of photographs exist that used this setup
prior to the patent filing.

~~~
Zigurd
Of course. But there is a huge asymmetry in that issued patents are presumed
to be valid. There is no burden on a plaintiff to prove their patent is valid.
The defendant has to separately sue to invalidate, and that costs at least a
few $100ks per patent.

There should be an administrative process to invalidate patents and a bounty
for successfully pursuing such actions.

~~~
dublinben
It would be even better if the patent application process was adversarial.
There should be an-equally robust argument against the validity of the patent
at every step of the process.

~~~
Zigurd
In theory, they're not called patent examiners for nothing. In practice, you
can patent a white background.

------
torbit
From the verge comments by TheGage

"Patent attorney’s like myself find these articles rather uninformed.
Prosecuting a patent before the USPTO nearly always (+95%) involve an Office
Action in which an Examiner at the USPTO searches the prior art and then
presents one or more prior art based rejections. The job of the patent
attorney is to argue the claims of the patent in terms of novelty and non-
obviousness over the prior art.

The file wrapper, which is available to anyone at this Government website who
can complete the USPTO’s CAPTCHA and enter the US Patent No. (which is
8,676,045 for this patent), provides this dialog. In the prosecution history
for this patent, you can see an Office Action (search “Non-Final Rejection” in
the “Image File Wrapper” tab) and the patent attorney’s reply, prior to
issuance of the patent.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that the Examiner’s often do not present the
most likely or on point prior art, but to say that granting the patent doesn’t
involve prior art is incorrect. We can debate whether a granted patent amounts
to anything and a lot of that depends upon context.

Finally, what so many get wrong (both journalists and the public) is that
patent infringement hangs on the claims. That is, the claims define the scope
of the invention. The detailed description/specification provides various
examples in support of the claim. The Title is often vague due to case law
imputing narrow title limitations into the claims (so never depend on the
Title when exclaiming what someone has “patented”). In this patent, the claim
is something like a page and half long, having over 7-8 features, each of
which you would have to prove before a court that the alleged infringer has
done in order to be awarded damages.

Indeed, in reviewing the claims, Amazon hasn’t just patented “taking photos
with a ‘near perfect’ white backdrop,” but according to the claim for Amazon’s
patent, I would argue that Amazon patented a very involved and strictly
defined way (the’re even ratios in the patent so avoiding infringement would
be as easy as having slightly different ratios) by which to take photos with a
“near perfect” white backdrop.

Hope that helps. I know few patent attorney’s bother (and we’re a rare breed
with only ~70K of us registered patent agents from the start of the patent
system), and I’m probably wasting my time because it makes for less dramatic
coverage, but I would like the anti-patent vibe on cites I otherwise enjoy to
be less sensational and more informed.

Best, MKG"

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5696356/amazon-
inexplicably...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5696356/amazon-inexplicably-
granted-patent-for-common-photography-flash-setup)

~~~
DannyBee
As a patent attorney myself, I can say that what this particular patent
attorney misses is "the forest for the trees"

The point is that patenting the idea of taking photos against a white backdrop
with certain ratios is ridiculous, whether you can tweak the ratios to avoid
infringement, or whatever.

Yes, someone got paid to turn it into a half page claim "that would have to be
proved to a court". Great. That's not hard for a patent agent to do, that's
what we are paid to do. It is completely irrelevant to whether this patent
should have ever seen the light of day.

His entire comment smacks of "it's okay, because it may have been a lot of
work to get this patent!"

~~~
ScottBurson
> patenting the idea of taking photos against a white backdrop with certain
> ratios is ridiculous

Is that really obvious? I haven't studied the patent from top to bottom, but I
did look at the claims, which seemed extremely narrow. I'm only an amateur
photographer, so I can't rule out -- at least not on a brief reading -- that
this particular combination of elements might produce some novel effect.

Anyway, of all the bad patents coming out of the PTO, this doesn't seem to me
to be one of the ones to be most concerned about. It's extremely narrow, and
on top of that, how would they ever detect infringement? Is there any chance
they could tell, by looking at an image, that it was produced exactly this
way? I rather doubt it.

The question I always come back to is, is the cost to society of granting a
monopoly on this technique outweighed by the intellectual contribution of the
idea? In this case, the cost seems so small that I'm not even sure it's worth
my time to figure out whether there was any intellectual contribution at all.

~~~
lotsofmangos
The combination of elements is descriptive, not proscriptive.

There are clauses elsewhere in the patent that greatly expand the claims so
you do not have to have copied the exact description in the claims to be
infringing, as long as your setup is similar and is aimed at achieving the
same end result.

------
devinmontgomery
Startup checklist item #378: Get some bullshit patents we don't even believe
are valid to use defensively and/or pretend we have some protectable IP. Of
all the things I don't want to spend time on, this is right up there.

------
mahdavi
There are tons of prior art out there to invalidate this stupid patent.
Wondering what lawyers at Amazon where thinking when they filed for this
patent.

~~~
bsenftner
They were thinking: more billable hours! Yay! What else can we patent?!

------
sitkack
I am going to file a new patent for taking arbitrary volumetric images of
objects placed inside virtually infinite integrating sphere [1] illuminated by
arbitrary combinations of spectral emitters (polychromatic light sources).

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrating_sphere](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrating_sphere)

------
kileywm
I have long understood the primary incentive to patent an idea is to protect
research and development investments. It makes sense from the perspective that
inventions can often be reverse engineered for a fraction of initial R&D cost.
I could be wrong, but if I am not... how much R&D went into this little gem of
photography 'innovation'.

------
Lunatic666
I'm always laughing my ass of when I read for which stupid shit you can get a
patent in the U.S. If you seriously ask for a patent like this in Europe, they
tell you to take your pills and get the fuck out of their office

------
iksilon
Oh dear... I should have been a lawyer. I could troll for money, instead of
wrecking my head with processing myoelectric signal on a mean 16MHz machine.
[no offense to lawyers]

------
PaulHoule
This reminds me of the application to the jp patent office on playing with a
Kendama. The difference is that the jp office didn'nt approve it.

------
damon_c
Ha. the picture is the best part:
[http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=08676045&homeurl=http%3A%...](http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=08676045&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-
Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-
adv.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPALL%2526S1%3D08676045%2526OS%3DPN%2F08676045%2526RS%3DPN%2F08676045&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page)

------
chrisBob
Does anyone know why the defensive patents were eliminated? If Amazon is being
honest with the goal of this then that would have been perfect.

~~~
dnautics
defensive patents were not eliminated. There is still, for example, RPX
corporation
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPX_Corporation))
which does "active" defensive patent protection in a for-profit model.

What was, however, eliminated, was the Statutory Invetion Registration:
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Statutory_Inventi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Statutory_Invention_Registration))
For this reason: "Since the adoption of the eighteen-month publication
procedure, the use of SIR has decreased substantially, and the America Invents
Act eliminated this tool for inventors."
([http://www.aiarulemaking.com/rulemaking-
topics/group-3/repea...](http://www.aiarulemaking.com/rulemaking-
topics/group-3/repeal-statutory-invention-registration.php))

------
surana90
Even if you change the title to - "Amazon granted patent for taking photo in a
particular way." It still sounds really bad.

------
callesgg
On the practical side:

Does this mean that in the us legally speaking putting lights and camera like
on the picture requires consent from amazon?

------
fuckedup
This stupidity need to be stopped ..

~~~
camus2
Sorry, stupidiy stoppers ARE patented!

~~~
lotsofmangos
Is that why the bookcase keeps falling off the wall?

------
wslh
Just imagine what happens if you implement a One Click over a white
bakckground!

------
atmosx
Any plans to reform the patenting process?? Anyone???

------
woopdy
Next up: patent for taking pictures with any device.

------
binocarlos
Wow - cornflakes! (can we patent that?)

~~~
Theodores
[http://www.google.com/patents/US558393](http://www.google.com/patents/US558393)

------
31reasons
Okay so this patent is for background color of RGB:1,1,1 Do they have patent
for RGB:1,0.99,1 ?

------
kichu37
This looks like it's for product pictures

------
mantrax5
How dare they describe a good way of getting even white background on photos
so others can use it for a nominal (or no) fee?

This kind of attitude that _any_ patent is only filed so to be used for a
lawsuit is part of the problem.

What's wrong with patenting this method of taking photos for others to see and
use?

Has anyone contacted Amazon and asked if they license this patent and for how
much? No. Let's hate.

~~~
icebraining
Patents aren't supposed to protect descriptions, they're supposed to protect
inventions.

------
neom
My degree is in Digital Imaging Technology, I worked out of college for many
years as the CEO of a film startup (stillmotion) that did quite well (way
before I joined DigitalOcean).

This disgusts me. Here are the idiots behind it(*potentially, as I've not
talked to them, I can't confirm 100%):

[http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeremy-
sawatzky/6/8a/461](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeremy-sawatzky/6/8a/461)

Gross gross gross gross.

~~~
ansimionescu
This kind of public shaming needs to happen more often. Someone should build
an anonymous (to avoid lawsuits) public index of assholes like these.

~~~
cookiecaper
Ah yes, because nothing's better than a repository of dox for script kiddies
to reference on impulse and without a balanced arrangement of facts or even
independent confirmation that the listed persons were actually involved. I
can't think of a single instance where that's gone horrifically wrong!

We have a concept called "rule of law" to address such grievances. Vigilante
"justice" should not be facilitated, especially not against people who got
their names slapped on a patent. If the patent is illegitimate, bring suit
under all applicable charges, including considerations for the malicious
intent you so obviously believe the inventors held.

Let's _never_ build a list like the one you've proposed.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_We have a concept called "rule of law" to address such grievances_

Unfortunately we don't. There is great asymmetry in favour of the patent
holder, a patent is presumed valid until challenged, and that is easily a six-
digit sum. Most people and most small companies don't have that kind of money
lying around to state their case that Amazon is patenting basic techniques in
studio photography.

And there is the problem. This outcome appears unjust because it is. The
civilized way of justice through the courts is not available, consequently we
are seeing calls for vigilantism. Someone will uphold the law, and if it isn't
the Executive and Congress the street will step in to fill the void.

~~~
cookiecaper
The civilized way _is_ available. If existing patent law makes it
prohibitively difficult to remove a bad patent, the civilized solution is to
call your local representatives and work with them to author a bill that
modifies the system. It is not to release personal information about the
people who disagree and say, "Well, the law isn't what we want it to be right
now, so we're going to harass, torment, embarrass, and scare you, because you
did something legal which I don't think you should've been allowed to do."
Again, look up rule of law. If we can't accept that sometimes we have to obey
and respect law while simultaneously working to correct it, whether we agree
or not, then we have nothing left.

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kbrower
its seems to be a bit more specific than that

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jestinjoy1
I don't have any idea of US Patenting works. Its ok some idiots apply for
patents like this. How it got accepted! Is it like I can say anything i like
and got accepted!

