proj-imim:
RE: IPX 3 fisheye panorama
John Spikowski 2000-May-20 21:38:37
If Ford Oxaal wins his law suit, what will be the outcome?
1. Does Ford get all the revenue IPIX made?
2. Will Ford prevent other from doing fisheye panorama like IPIX has?
3. Will the companies that got sued by IPIX have their cases reversed?
4. Is there a site set up to track the progress of these issues?
-----Original Message-----
From: #removed#
[mailto:#removed#]On Behalf Of Gummy Bear
Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2000 11:13 AM
To: Immersive Imaging
Subject: Re: IPX 3 fisheye panorama
A good article about how messed up things
are at the US Patent and Tradmark office:
http://www.around.com/patent.html
Gummy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Slater" <#removed#>
To: "Andrew Nemeth" <#removed#>
Cc: "Immersive Imaging" <#removed#>
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2000 4:56 PM
Subject: Re: IPX 3 fisheye panorama
> Andrew Nemeth wrote:
>
> > >> I found out that IPIX will be using 3 fisheye shots with the next
release
> > >
> > >Ipix is being sued by Ford Oxaal for violating his patent on
> > >two fisheye-photography. I suspect the change is in response
> > >to this lawsuit.
> >
> > Most amusing if this is the case!
> >
> > I remember how 'holier-than-thou' our IPIX friends
> > were when they 'won' the Smoothmove patent lawsuit
> > back in 1998.
> >
> > And now all of a sudden the make the switch to 3x
> > fisheyes to try to wriggle out of a patent attack.
> >
> > I mean, just how evil can a company get? Sheesh.
> > satan.com.
> >
> > :?)
>
> Actually IPIX can get even worse. My story:
>
> Around 1992 I built a camera called the Spherecam. The Spherecam has been
on the
> web for quite some time and is further described at:
>
> http://www.nearfield.com/~dan/Photo/sphere/sphere.htm
>
> In March of 1996 I published an article in a panoramic photography
magazine
> describing both the camera and software processing (The article is
available at
> the above URL). Just after the article was published, Omniview
(predecessor to
> IPIX) asked me many questions about it and wanted sample images, etc. I
was told
> by an IPIX person that they went ahead and built one although with larger
lenses
> and shot a bunch of test shots, etc.
>
> Unknown to me until very recently: In May of 1997 IPIX went ahead and
filed for
> a patent on my Spherecam. This patent issued late last year.
>
> http://patent.womplex.ibm.com/details?&pn=US06002430__
>
> Needless to say I also am not happy with IPIX.
>
> To add insult to injury one of the IPIX lawyers contacted me several
months back
> (before I found out about the Spherecam patent) to see if I was interested
in
> becoming an expert witness to help IPIX in the law suit of IPIX vs Ford
Oxaal.
> Needless to say I turned them down.
>
> Dan Slater
>
>
>