On 11 May 2014 16:16, YES NOPE9 wrote: > > http://jonathanturley.org/2014/05/10/picture-this-us-patent-office-grants= -amazon-photography-against-a-white-background-patent/#more-78984 Owls are not what they seem. ie There appears to be more to this than meets the eye and, Strange as it may seem Amazon MAY be intentionally be playing the white knight here. If so (and if not) there are things which can be learned by watching what happens and these may be generically applicable in other fields.And, that MAY be Amazon's intent. Unlikely as that may sound at first glance, a look at the details shows why this may be so. Action is specifically being taken over this patent by interest groups There are things that people can do in this specific case and I have been wondering if I want to join the party, as it were. Not for the sake of this individual case but because - this appears to be an attempt to create a purposefully ridiculous patent - that is almost impossible to enforce, - has massive SIMILAR prior art - but not necessarily identical - and will bother nobody at all in practice. It basically *SEEMS* to patent the use of a continuous curved backdrop to allow the background to be made invisible in photos, as has been done in many ways since time immemorial. BUT it makes specific claims for lens focal length, lens aperture, platform height, platform size, wattage of lights, position and direction and quantity of lights, NO post-processing, and quite a few more things. It is usual for patents to have a weasel clause (technical term) at the end that says something along the lines of "these are some of the ways that you could do thsi but people who know their stuff could do it N other ways and we include those in our claims as well". In my quick look through the actual patent documents it seems to be relatively free of such weasel words or of extending the particular to the general. It does it somewhat in some places (eg "about xxx inches") but not overwhelmingly. SO this patent seems to be set up to fail to be unenforceable, and to annoy people with its rude brashness. It seems like a "poster boy" for an anti-bad patent campaign, without posing any real risk. People are currently mounting such a campaign. See here if interested. http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/50036/when-were-white-seamless-bac= kgrounds-and-platforms-first-used-in-studio-lighting Patent http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=3D08676045&SectionNum=3D3&IDKey=3DE46B00= 28851A&HomeUrl=3Dhttp://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/ Avoiding a general anti-pathetic-patent whinging session is desirable. But those who are interested in the specific processes followed in this case may find it valuable. Russell --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .