Peter Wolf of Photocrazy, Inc. invented event photography. Yeah, I know, but the United States Patent and Trademark Office gave him a patent that says he did invent one aspect of searching for images using identifying numbers. You can read the entire patent at Google Patent Search so I won’t bore you to death with the details. The long and short of it all is that the patent application was filed in October of 2005, years after any number of companies had begun using bib or uniform numbers to search for images in a database.
This from the patent application describes the method of associating data with an image file that will be used in the patented process to identify images in the database:
2. Associating identifying data with each photograph taken where the identifying data is AT LEAST ONE of the following:
a. A number corresponding to a number worn by a participant (, i.e. a bib number)
b. A participants name
c. A code acquired from a component worn by a participant
d. A date and time, including hour and minute the photograph was taken (automatically included in the EXIF data for digital images taken with today’s equipment)
Clearly Mr. Wolf didn’t invent any of these methods (he isn’t selling item C so it is vaporware) of image identification. Mr. Wolf didn’t invent the database, Charles Bachman did. Mr. Wolf didn’t invent EXIF, JEITA did. Mr Wolf didn’t invent bib or uniform numbers either. Mr. Wolf wasn’t even the first to think of the idea of searching a database by identifying data in an image. Kodak DP2 has done this for years on a local network as has ACDSee, ID Imager and others. I fail to see how this dog will hunt but my degree is not in law.
On his website Mr. Wolf claimed that “Patent Lawyers Confirm Validity” when SEP Society issued their opinion. I can read real good and I fail to see where that statement says anything other than the patent may cover your business or it may not so you maybe better ask your lawyer, but let’s not split hairs. It is perfectly legal for Mr. Wolf to inform people of a patent and suggest that they should look at their exposure to it.
He did manage to get a few people to pay up, but the list is short. It certainly seemed that his patent couldn’t possibly hold up (not legal advice) but who really knew until Photocrazy decided to bring action against someone. Well, we are all gonna find out just how valid the patents are because on June 8th suit was filed against 8 companies in US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Texas seems to see an awful lot of these patent cases and here is one more against the following companies:
- Brightroom Inc., Emeryville, California
- Island Photography Inc., Glen Cove, New York
- Kruetz Photography, Austin, Texas
- Bird’s Eye View Inc., Simpsonville, South Carolina
- DigiLabs Inc., Palo Alto, California
- Printroom Inc., Santa Clara, California
- SmugMug Inc., Mountain View, California
- Hour Photos Inc. Addison, Texas
On that note, I expect the first thing filed by the defendants will be a motion to sever as you cannot join cases against defendants where the infringement did not occur from the same transaction. What that means is this. If defendant #3 possibly infringed the patent using the service of defendant #1, those cases may be joined as one because the alleged infringement occurred from the same transaction. If defendant #5 has no relationship to #1 or #3 then there is no cause to join the cases.
Mr. Wolf is likely attempting this route to save both time and money. It is much more difficult and costly to pursue 8 cases than one. The defendants will not want to be crowded in to one ship that may well sink. Best to be in your own boat and see if Mr. Wolf has pockets deep enough to run the gauntlet of a number of cases. Good luck to all involved. I will be watching this very closely.
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Here’s where I like to store all my personal documents:
http://www.photocrazy.com/Patents/
You should check them out . .. . lots of interesting stuff
Peter,
I’m not sure why you chose to share that here, but I bit and had a look. $50,000 a year? Glad I don’t do races.
I looked at your list of infringers and was a little surprised by who I didn’t see listed there.
The company where this blog was hosted may have closed, and this blog may be “closed”, but I am still very interested in how this all turns out. I think you gather from the original post that I don’t see things your way but I am no less interested in the outcome.
[...] Photocrazy Files Suit [...]
[...] last 2 months) or just let it go. I haven’t decided what to do, but imagine my shock when my Photocrazy post got a comment from Peter Wolf [...]
[...] Photocrazy Suit Update Posted on October 20, 2007 by dualsub I’ll admit that I have been very preoccupied lately. With Bob retiring and the lab closing it took us several months to get that all squared away. After a month off I had given thought about this blog. Should I move it and keep it going (there are about 400 readers every week even in the last 2 months) or just let it go. I haven’t decided what to do, but imagine my shock when my Photocrazy post got a comment from Peter Wolf himself. [...]
Redevelop says : I absolutely agree with this !