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Topic: ALERTAustralian Patent on VRTours ?

Message posted by DHImaging on May-17-2005 at 6:40am

Australia
May-17-2005
1 Posts

Greetings one and all,

First off, I have just spoken to the patent solicitor and he'll have the draft letter for me in the morning. The Friday deadline isn't a worry, as long as they receive it by Friday. A fax will do just as well.

Here are some things that have been brought to my attention:

Piracy
======

Proactive's example (click on the button)

http://www.proactivetours.com.au/pat/portal.asp?T=1541#

Original floorplan from 360Vue/Massimo

http://www.360vue.com/vt/106alma/html/floor_plan.html

Seems they liked Massimo's floorplans... Just goes to show their character.

In case someone has missed the patent, here is a link to Massimo's:

http://www.360vue.com/binder.pdf

I'll scan and upload our copy soonly.

Here is a link to the patent itself:

http://pericles.ipaustralia.gov.au/aub/pdf/nps/2004/1202/2003250595B2/2003250595.pdf

At the end of this e-mail will be the ABN, domain name info and patent info for this mob.

Seems they are listed on the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) and it looks like they have public shares.

Wonder what their shareholders think of the company pirating from other websites and threatening small companies?

A new person rallying to the battlecry is Simon Maguire, and he offers the following:

[quote]

Had contact with Kate Hunter (Eyecom) in Melbourne who received the same letter. They fought a similar claim in the courts a few years ago and won (think 2001?). This time they have instructed their solicitor to write back a rude letter with a warning that if they approach any of their clients with these unfounded threats they will be seeking damages. Think this letter should convince them to stop their stupid threats but no harm in another letter from you.

Patents are cheap to obtain but very expensive to defend and with the body of evidence of prior art etc etc think this SA mob will disappear as quickly as they appeared.

[/quote]

I think this is reassuring, as it shows that a letter might just do the trick. Note though that Kate Hunter initially took them to court.

A few words from Peter Melocco of www.virtualtour.com.au:

[quote]

Re: Proactive Tours Pty Ltd claim to patent on Interactive

Message posted by 360texas on May-18-2005 at 9:24am

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Reveived this email this morning 18May05 0827a (GMT -6) Central Texas Time

Hi All...

Here is the draft from the solicitor.

THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW...

I have heard from two of us - VRTOURS and 360VUE - and they have told me that they agree to sign an Affidavit and mail/email a photocopy of the signed Affidavit to me for forwarding on to the solicitor.

I cannot include anyone's name and company details in the letter unless an Affidavit is willing to be signed.

Here are ALL of the options:

1) Agree to Proactive Tours terms and stop making Virtual Tours

2) Agree to Proactive Tours terms and enter into a marketing agreement with them, where they will (more than likely) ask you to pay a royalty for each tour you do

3) Ignore the letter from Proactive Tours and hope they don't sue you

4) Agree to sign an Affidavit, saying "I (name) of (company name) hereby state that (company name) creates Virtual Tours in a manner that is DIFFERENT from Proactive Tours and does not INFRINGE on their Patent. (company name) has been operating since (date of incorporation/business license) and the process that I use has not changed from (date of incorporation/business license)."

5) Take the letter that I have attached, LOGICALLY change the details and the verbage to have it come from YOUR POINT OF VIEW (First Person), and submit the letter yourself.

6) Take this letter, copies of the e-mails, copies of the letter from Proactive Tours, your Business License, and if you have any DOCUMENTATION from clients (testimonies) with a DATE, to a local Patent Solicitor and have them type something up for you.

I, Digita

-------------
/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

Visit 360texas.com

Message posted by 360texas on May-18-2005 at 9:32am

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Here is the attached

[DRAFT LETTER]

Lesicar Perrin

49 Wright Street

ADELAIDE SA 5000

Attention: Ms Doreen Perrin

BY FACSIMILE

08 8211 9433

[UNDATED]

Dear Sirs

Proactive Tours Pty Ltd

Infringement of Patent Rights

Our Ref: NGM:MJL:GF42579(E):GM53930

We have been retained by Digital Homes Imaging to respond to your letter addressed to our client and dated 5 May 2005.

Our client is not prepared to provide the undertakings sought in your letter. Indeed, we suggest that it would be in your clients interest to make further investigations and to withdraw their threats of infringement. Further investigations will reveal that our client has been trading and producing virtual tours of the type complained of since they registered their business on 18 April 2000. In this respect, we refer you to the testimonials on our clients website www.dhimaging.com.au that date back to September 2001 and we invite you to visit virtual tours prepared by our client, for example, www.barwonss.vic.edu.au/virtual_tour.htm for which our client received a letter of thanks on 4 October 2001.

We ask that your client withdraw their threats of infringement by 27 May 2005. If we do not receive your response, our client will consider whether to take further action; for example under sections 121 and/or 128 of the Patents Act.

In the event that your client issues proceedings, this letter will be produced to the Court on the question of costs.

[Scheduled signing date 19May05 AU time]

-------------
/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

Visit 360texas.com

Message posted by 360texas on May-19-2005 at 9:05am

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Received this email this morning 19May2005. It was sent to 16 VR tour developers in Australia as well as a major online Realtor in Melbourne AU.
---------
G'day...

The latest is...

The patent solicitor has stated that, after conferring with his associates, that to feel completely confident in incorporating the other companies and their respective affidavits, he'd have to phone everyone and discuss the process each uses to do the reply letter appropriately.

In other words, everyone needs to call this lawyer.

The lawyer said that it would be better for the case (the long term goal) if there were multiple people he represented when filing action against Proactive Tours (to get the patent revoked).

I urge everyone who wants to have a very good patent solicitor reply
contact:

Nick Mountford
Principal
GRIFFITH HACK
Tel. + 61 3 9243 8300

and tell him that JOEL CALLAHAN referred you to him. I've asked if he could give the group a discount (since we all have similar issues) and he said he'd see what he could do. He later mentioned that he's already put far more into the case than $400 will cover it.

I sincerely apologise to everyone - I was trying to do right by everyone.

The solicitor said that if you contact him tomorrow [ ed. 20May05], he can fax a TEMPORARY REPLY to Proactive Tours which is legally binding and will satisfy the deadline. The solicitor will then work with you individually to prepare your letter.

For instance, the solicitor went to our company website, dug around in the testimonials, found supporting documents that pre-date the patent, etc. He's a very thoughtful solicitor.

Hope I haven't let anyone down - I feel I've done all that I can do.

-Joel

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

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Message posted by 360precision on June-01-2005 at 11:28am

United Kingdom
June-01-2005
10 Posts

I wish I'd seen this earlier. Even though I no longer live/work in Australia I've produced thousands of panos of Sydney properties dating back to 1994, maybe even a bit earlier.

I'm happy to chip in for the costs as I'll be moving back to OZ in the next 4-5 years or so. So it's in my best interest and the interest of the VR community on a whole that I do what I can from 12,000 miles away.

If push comes to shove I'm happy to dig up my samples from the early 90's to be used as prior art. I'm actually in the process of obtaining a patent for the 360precision head so I'll get my lawyer to have a look at this thread and protours bogus patent.

I just can't believe they have the balls to actually pull this off. If the patent does get annulled then their should be a case against the patent office as it's clear that no due diligence was carried out before issuing the patent.

It's about time that the patent office was made accountable for wasting so much valuable time.

Message posted by 360texas on June-01-2005 at 4:17pm

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Thanks, I just sent Joel in AU a copy of your comment.

Dave

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

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Message posted by 360texas on June-01-2005 at 7:31pm

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Hey Dave,

The patent solicitor told me the patent office simply checks to see if there is an existing patent and if not, the patent application is approved.

Pretty sad, really.

It'll cost in the neighbourhood of $50,000-$100,000 to challenge the patent in court. If we do, we're automatically sued for damages. :(

We're looking at helping provide prior art for a BIG virtual tour company.

Will let you know how that goes.

It'll be YEARS before that goes to court, if it does.

Fortunately, all of our testimonials on our website are dated prior to 2003! :) *WE* are gonna be ok - and all we can do is hope the other VR companies followed up with a solicitor (as we advised them to do).

When we hear back from our solicitor, we'll drop you an email letting you know how it turned out.

Thanks mate...

-joel and lucy

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

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Message posted by Basil1954 on June-05-2005 at 2:50pm

United States
June-05-2005
2 Posts

This is not about an Australian patent, but about a U.S. one. Not sure what it means, and thought some of you may have some experience.

I have been researching different means to do real estate virtual tours. We are thinking about doing it ourselves just so we can have complete control of the quality and the way the web page would look. Not looking to do tours for others, just our own listings.

The two products that come the closest to what we have in mind is the tourweaver program, and another one at www.duckware.com A good example of a tour using this can be found at http://www.idyll-by-the-sea.com/

The main attraction to each is the ability to do the side floorplan so the viewer knows how the pano relates to the property.

There are some things I like better about tourweaver, some I like better about duckware. In any event, as part of trying to make my decision I did talk to the guy at duckware. His position is that he has a patent on the ability to incorporate the floorplan if I understood him correctly. I looked up patents and found the following:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=duckware&OS=duckware&RS=duckware

So is this like the Australian situation? Does this mean that if I want to post virtual tours with floorplans in the U.S. I could not do so with tourweaver?

I also found another U.S. provider doing these type of tours at www.obeo.com --- their viewpoint product. An example there is http://www.obeo.com/Public/Solutions/Product.aspx?Occupation=Occupation-1&Product=Solution-3
then click the View Examples.

I have no desire to violate any one's patents, just confused about which product to go with now after reading this thread and the patent.

Anyone had any experience here?

Message posted by 360texas on June-05-2005 at 5:43pm

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Hmm I thought Duckware had a patent for a specific java applet that had unique display qualities, cross hair, panning ablility. At one time few years ago, he was selling the applet for about $35 per panorama. You could buy say a block of 5 licenses for $xx. 10 for $xxx. etc.

Doing clickable red dots to display popup panoramas I would not think be patentable because you can make those using public domain HTML, dhtml, xml. You can create these using clickable Image maps using MS FrontPage, Adobe Go Live, Macromedia Dreamweaver. You can even make clickable url link red dot maps using Macromedia FLASH.

Hope that helps

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

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