Patent

IBM Patent Application Titled “Multi-Mode Video Event Indexing” Published Online

01/02/2014 | 01:45pm US/Eastern Recommend: By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Computer Weekly News — According to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C. , by VerticalNews journalists, a patent application by the inventors Bobbitt, Russell P . ( New York, NY ); Brown, Lisa M. ( Pleasantville, NY ); Feris, Rogerio S. ( Hartford, CT ); Hampapur, Arun ( Norwalk, CT ); Zhai, Yun ( Bedford Hills, NY ), filed on August 21, 2013 , was made available online on December 26, 2013 . The assignee for this patent application is International Business Machines Corporation . Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: "The present invention relates to the analysis of activities in videos, and more particularly to accurately determining and distinguishing object movements and activities represented thereby. "Video surveillance enables object monitoring through video displays of one or more areas remote from a human monitor. Exemplary applications include security surveillance of public and private areas, for example parking lots for human and vehicle movements, assembly areas such as train stations and entertainment halls for abandoned baggage or objects, borders and doorways for unauthorized entry, secured areas for unauthorized vehicle or object movements and removals, etc. However, human review and analysis of video feeds is time consuming and perhaps inefficient with respect to human resources allocations, and accordingly it is desirable to implement automated systems for video analysis. "Automated analysis of videos for determining object movements, activities and behaviors presents a number […]

U.S. Patent And Trademark Office Grants MOBOTIX?s Requests For Patent Review

By MOBOTIX NewsDesk on January 3, 2014 mobotix MOBOTIX Corp. succeeded again in a patent dispute with San Antonio, Texas-based e-Watch Inc. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted MOBOTIX Corp.’s requests for review of four patents owned by e-Watch Inc. According to the USPTO, information presented by MOBOTIX Corp. established that there is a reasonable likelihood that MOBOTIX Corp. would prevail in showing unpatentability of the challenged patent claims. Third-party publications found through extensive search as well as documentation and presentations published by MOBOTIX at the CeBIT trade fair in Hanover, Germany, in February 2000 show that the contents of the patent claims had been disclosed prior to the application for patent. The four patents are cause of action in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Texas-based e-Watch Inc. at the U.S federal court in San Antonio (Texas). In June, the court granted MOBOTIX Corp.’s motion for stay of the litigation pending review of the validity of the patents at the USPTO and confirmed the view of MOBOTIX Corp. that the patent lawsuit will be rendered irrelevant if the claims of the patents are cancelled in the review proceedings at the USPTO. MOBOTIX Corp. holds that the claims of the four patents are unpatentable and consequently requested cancellation of the patents at the USPTO. The requests not only comprise the claims asserted in the lawsuit but above that challenge almost all claims of the four patents. “We are pleased that the USPTO granted our requests for patent […]

Agent Vi Continues Video Analytics Leadership With ObjectVideo Patent License

Agent Vi provides flexible video analytics solutions, with powerful options for both edge and server based solutions News | CIOL Bureau ROSH HA’AYIN, ISRAEL & RESTON, USA: Agent Vi, a global leader in open architecture video analytics software solutions, jointly announced the signing of a patent license agreement with ObjectVideo. The worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-bearing license to ObjectVideo’s portfolio of 55 patents provides Agent Vi, its customers and partners, protection for current and future Agent Vi products. Itsik Kattan, CEO of Agent Vi, said: "Agent Vi has been a leading provider of video analytics solutions for the past 10 years, maintaining this leading position through continued innovation and significant global expansion. Our commitment to our ecosystem of product users, sales channels and integration partners has always been our highest priority, and we are happy to have reached this agreement which allows us to shield our ecosystem through a stronger intellectual property foundation." "Agent Vi provides flexible video analytics solutions, with powerful options for both edge and server based solutions," said Raul Fernandez, chairman of ObjectVideo. "We are very pleased to add Agent Vi’s complete product portfolio to the growing list of ‘risk-free’ analytics solutions on the market. Adding Agent Vi to the global roster of licensed video analytics manufacturers further demonstrates the value of ObjectVideo’s patent portfolio to manufacturers regardless of their location and the markets they serve. ObjectVideo’s patent licensees include the leading global developers of video analytics from Israel, Asia, Europe and North America." ObjectVideo holds 55 US […]

U.S.-Based Biometric Company Continues Patent Infringement Fight

The security industry is no stranger to patent litigation, especially when it comes to video surveillance. However, a ruling by a federal appeals court earlier this month could have an impact on the biometrics market and specifically on foreign manufacturers looking to import fingerprint scanners into the U.S. In 2010, Cross Match Technologies, a Florida-based manufacturer of biometric solutions, filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission alleging that South Korea-based manufacturer Suprema, Inc. and its reseller Mentalix, Inc. of Plano, Texas, had infringed upon three of the company’s patents. According to Kathryn Hutton, senior vice president and general counsel for Cross Match, these patents include: U.S. Patent No. 5,900,993 (“the ’993 patent”), which is a hardware patent that pertains to the optical configuration of their scanners, which use a series of lenses to generate the image on a fingerprint. The other two, U.S. Patent No. 7,203,344 (“the ’344 patent”) and U.S. Patent No. 7,277,562 (“the ’562 patent”) are software method patents that tell a user when a fingerprint image is good enough to be captured and processed. Hutton said this case started near the end of 2009 when the U.S. General Services Administration was looking into purchasing several hundred fingerprint scanners for the Census Bureau in an effort to check the backgrounds of the incoming plethora of census workers. Mentalix was eventually awarded the bid, but to the surprise of Cross Match, they were not going to be using their hardware. “We have had a long standing relationship […]

Can Apple Transfer Its Elegance To Secure Biometrics And Access Control?

With a fresh patent in hand this week for facial recognition, a fingerprint reader on its iPhone 5 and a new $345 million acquisition of 3D-sensor company PrimeSense , Apple seems to be putting some serious body english on the user interface. Apple facial recognition device touchID primesense Exhibit 1 from Apple’s Facial Recognition patent. No. 124 points to an "image sensor" behind the screen. Is Apple gunning to re-define interacting (re: authentication) and interfacing with computers, devices – and ultimately "things" in the computing environment at large? And will it re-set expectations for security, as well as, for innovation and convenience? Apple’s newest patent awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office points to a sophisticated array of biometric and gesture-based inputs across a range of devices and vertical industries. If that is the case (the company isn’t saying), can Apple’s pedigree for elegant design overcome fickle user acceptance and current shortcomings in biometric technology and lap the field? "The state of play today in consumer biometrics security is pretty primitive," said Steve Wilson, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. "In security, we’re accustomed to rigorous standards and testing; lots of peer review; all encryption algorithms being published. But with biometrics we still don’t have agreed upon test protocols." Wilson said consumer biometrics is all about convenience and has very little to do with serious security. Apple found that out first hand when the Touch ID fingerprint reader on the new iPhone 5 was hacked shortly after […]

Bank of America Looks To Biometric ATMs In New Patent Application

biometric-atm November 15, 2013 –  The Bank of America has pushed through a patent application, which describes a biometric ATM system. Reported in ATM Marketplace , the patent was submitted to the USPTO in 2012, and published recently in 2013. Specifically, this patent application  outlines a system for authenticating users with a combination of a pin-code and fingerprint biometrics. The design of a biometric ATM and the patent application certainly isn’t very specific, and at this point it looks like the BofA is staking out some territory for development, and doesn’t want to leave much room for competition. “[A] fingerprint scanner for use in the systems and methods of the invention may use optical fingerprint imaging, ultrasonic sensors, capacitance sensors (passive or active) and/or any other suitable method to capture the digital image of a fingerprint,” is just an example of some of the unspecific language contained in this application. “Any suitable method for PIN validation and fingerprint validation may be used to validate the input PIN and fingerprints.” It’s been widely acknowledged that payment systems and ATMs are a coming wave for biometric integrations, and it’s interesting to see the BofA making a move. There are a few places where biometric ATMs are already a reality. Reported previously , the Central Bank of Nigeria has teamed up with Dermalog for biometric POS systems as well as for biometric ATMs. Likewise, in Kenya, Tracom Services has launched a new line of fingerprint ATMs in Nairobi.    Leave a Comment comments […]