Patent application – Head mounted display | Hacker News Reader

Patent application – Head mounted display

google.com

26 pointsjonbaer14 comments

That [what was originally posted]'s not a patent number. It's the publication number of a patent application. Just because one applies for a patent does not mean that it has been granted.

This is the granted patent:

http://www.google.com/patents/US8605008

The publication is dated the same as the grant date because Apple used a legal trick that allowed them to defer publication of the application (originally filed in 2008) until the grant actually happened.

This Yahoo patent from a few years before seems very similar to this concept: http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...

Do notice the Apple logo on the side of one of the sketches:

http://www.seobythesea.com/wp-images/yahoo-virtual-reality-g...

And the talk of virtual reality games (without actually building them):

A virtual World Of Warcraft-type overlay can be generated that is superimposed on the real world by wearable device instead of being viewed on a computer screen. According to the virtual overlay, user can be enabled to play in the real world, but be fighting virtual characters.

From: http://www.seobythesea.com/2010/04/yahoo-exploring-virtual-r...

Prior patents in the area are one of the main reasons (aside from funding) I think Oculus hooked up with Facebook. They were in a position to get squashed under the past 20 years of VR patents and endless lawsuits. At least now the trolls will know the trial is going to be massively expensive and will be fought to the death.

At Apple, we were always asking, What else can we revolutionize? We looked at video cameras and remote controls. The craziest thing we talked about was something like Google Glass. We said, "What if we make visors, so it's like you're sitting in a theater?" I built a bunch of those prototypes. But we had such success with the things we were already doing that we didn't have time.

- Tony Fadell

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3016339/an-oral-history-of-apple...

I strapped a display to my face with full 6 DOF head tracking and played Dactly Nightmare in a bar circa 1994. My Fiance shot me. My head bounced down the stairs. Big screens up above allowed all the people gathered round to watch from either of our perspectives. Fuck off Apple you didn't invent any of this. Notice what how the list of claims starts:

1. (canceled)

What? Claim one being listed as "canceled" can mean any number of things. Most likely that claim one was unnecessary or did not narrow the scope enough and so as canceled by Apple.

Usually the claims build upon previous claims. You start out with the general and move on to the specific, often citing previous claims with language like: 4) An unumthingamajig as in claim 1 with added... to... Deleting one of the early claims is likely to remove the foundation from some of the later ones. But sure, we mustn't judge based on what's no longer there.

Pre and post YouTube, there were hundreds if not thousands of patents for "tv/video over the Internet." I wonder if there is such a swarm of patent trolling over VR now?

This is just a natural land-grab situation for an emerging market. Expect to see lots of applications similar to this in the coming months/years.

I wonder who will win the race...

Er, no it isn't. Given the filing and priority date, this patent was filed well before the likes of Google Glass were announced.

Any theory from people better versed with patent law on whether Google is gearing up to "fight" (IP-wise) Oculus or any other serious VR companies?

Google? This is an Apple patent.

The danger of not reading the article, coupled with the lack of these third-party sites not showing a patent application status. Last year there were some clowns in South Africa who went around boasting about their shiny patent, which had been awarded in the US and had priority in many other countries. Instead of realising how terrible the implementation of their software patent was and improving their product, they went to startup competition places disclosing their business model, talking about how they planned on getting Google, Facebook, to licence their product.

The patent was eventually rejected in the US, but third-party sites still list it as granted. They lost time from a lack of innovation due to trusting the patent and left competitors to build clever and more useful implementations of their product. Plus in SA software patents are invalid, so their right to recourse is weak.

A hint to Oculus and Facebook?

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