amazon wins patent taking photos against a white background

sevencrossing

I am not familiar with US Patents or law nor am I lawyer

In the UK; Patents are now handled by the Intellectual Property Office they also handle copyright, trade marks and design

I think only a Patent Lawyer could argue the difference between them. Even then, as we can see from the above, it can take years before the argument is settled

This could be along running thread

tcole1983

I guess whoever got black...I better delete this one.

spraynpray

I've read all of this thread but am still none the wiser about the point or aim of Amazon's action. Haven't they got better things to do? If they do have some 'patents department' who get bonuses for successfully filing patents, won't this one get seen as ridiculous? I mean there are so many ways of getting the same effect, it is pointless filing just one.

Maybe it is a test for a more important filing... /:)

sevencrossing

It is worth remembering, the majority of patents never get off the drawing board

tcole1983

It is worth remembering, the majority of patents never get off the drawing board

The patented was submitted in 2011 according to the article and has already been issued. Seems silly they were able to come along so long after the fact and patented something that even I have done and every single person with a white sheet can/probably have done. It is like coming in today and saying you want a patented for the wheel.

sevencrossing

tcole1983 It is like coming in today and saying you want a patented for the wheel

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1418165.stm

TaoTeJared

But again, you're talking about Amazon specifying standards or specifications, not the use of methods in certain patents.

I.e., the mechanism prevent other people from copying specifications is copyright, not patent.

The process is patentable so they did. You are talking about 100's of million's of items and photographs from hundreds of thousands of companies. Forcing a "look" that shows the products accurately is a huge thing. Charge $1 for each item they ship from their warehouses, that is enormous amounts of money.

A large amount of their earnings are not from selling items, but from the "services" side of their business. Web hosting, intranet for companies, warehousing, etc.

Ade

Exactly because there are a huge amount of items, Amazon is not going to force a requirement that all of them have to be photographed by their in-house photographers or by using a specific technique.

I mean, even if Amazon could photograph 1,000 products each and every day including weekends and holidays with no break, it would take nearly 300 years to photograph "100's of millions of items".

Ade

Amazon's product image requirements:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200109520
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200202110

The technical requirements are very simple. The background (if any) for the main image must be pure white; The image should be at least 500 pixels (or 1000 to enable "zooming"); TIFF, JPG, GIF and PNG are all acceptable; Both sRGB and CMYK colors are acceptable.

There are no requirements to use a specific method. No requirements to use their photography service. No restrictions against using the same picture elsewhere. No mention of patents.

One of the patent's listed inventors is on LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeremy-sawatzky/6/8a/461

Under the "honors" section he listed: "Amazon Inventor and Patent Award". So I believe the description I gave on the last page about Amazon's in-house patent system is accurate.

spraynpray

Anyway, what do we believe the purpose of this patent to be? To protect themselves from other people producing a similar look, or to stop anybody else from patenting it and stopping Amazon from using it (or what)?

TaoTeJared

I still go back to they are trying to stop someone making money where they could, setting a standard, and reinforcing some contract they have to obtain the "correct" look. This doesn't have any effect on 99.999% of us nor do I think they are trying to go after people.

Patents are "long term" forward looking plans. This was filed in 2011 - we may not see any actual use or application for a few years yet, if there really is any.

ThomasHorton

Perhaps next next we should speculate on the number of angels who can dance on the tip of an SB910.

With or without the difuser?

heartyfisher

Perhaps next next we should speculate on the number of angels who can dance on the tip of an SB910.

With or without the difuser?

the SB910 has a tip ?

Ironheart

Actually this question is much easier to answer than any intellectual property law: All of them if they want to