Discussion Forum: ALERTAustralian Patent on VRTours ?

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Topic: ALERTAustralian Patent on VRTours ?

Message posted by 360texas on May-10-2005 at 8:37am

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Another friend of mine in Australia wrote me an email today with this information. Anyone else in AU know anything about this ??

Hey Dave,

Ever heard of an Aussie Virtual Tour company called, "Pro Active Tours"?

http://www.proactivetours.com.au/

They have Patent No 2003250595 "Interactive Property Tour"

A system for creating a web based tour for an item of interest characterised in that it includes the steps of: -establish a tour identity -associating one or more reference images with the tour identity -positioning one or more reference icons on one or more of the said reference images, each said reference icons being associated with a further reference image -and wherein a position of each said reference icons is selected to provide information relating to said further reference image

A friend of mine doing Virtual Tours in Melbourne has received a letter from a law firm from this virtual tour company, claiming he owes them money from March 2004 for all the work he has placed online.

I think this is utter Xs.

How can anyone get a patent on performing Virtual Tour work?

Didn't Ipix try this Xs a few years ago??

We've been doing floorplan-driven Virtual Tours since early 2000. And this mob only uses still photos, not moving pans.

Have you heard anything?

Any thoughts on the subject?

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

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Message posted by VT360 on May-10-2005 at 10:21am

January-04-2003
751 Posts

Foul! I don't think they have any real claim.

Seems like their claiming a patent on producing a picture with hotspots.

Then they would have to sue all the websites in Austrailia that have pictures with links.

Message posted by Thomas on May-10-2005 at 4:16pm

May-18-2002
157 Posts

This is actually a problem because you need money for the lawyer. What about a company, maybe in Europe, hosting the virtual tours, and your friend inserts only the link for the virtual tour hosted on a server in Europe?

Message posted by videoedge on May-10-2005 at 8:19pm

Australia
October-02-2002
30 Posts

What a JOKE!! They are not using VTs but still shots!! Well at least I couldn't find a VT in their samples. For the life of me I cannot understand how they can patent the use of links within an image opening up still shots. I agree with VT360, they would have to sue about 75% of Australian website owners. Seems they have an office in my state. As I now have over 50 clients using hotspots, guess I better expect a letter....

Cheers
Ian

Message posted by BigGreenFurryTh on May-11-2005 at 6:13am

United Kingdom
January-07-2005
49 Posts

iPIX have patents on the process of converting fisheye / 180 degree images to rectilinear images for the express purpose of creating panoramas. Circa 1999 / 2000 iPIX started enforcing the patents. I talked to iPIX extensively earlier this year and I know they are not happy about PanoWeaver. But then I wasn't happy about iPIX's prices so we stopped talking.

There is a Mac program that does the same thing based on mathematical algorithms published prior to iPIX taking out the patent. See the Defish page for more information.

The Australian claim is frankly ludicrous as it does nothing but paraphrase the definition of hyperlinks as per Tim Berner-Lee's concept for the web.

Trouble is this Australian company probably has more money and lawyers than the smaller guys.

One possible course of action is to kick up a stink via W3C or in the open source community pages. Perhaps the weight of the Internet's standards body / open source opinion can be brought to bear on the company.

I assume that the Australian company's claim is genuine and not a scam of some kind......

OK my final edit on this post (honest). How long has Tourweaver been available and in use? If it's before these jokers took out the patent then maybe they don't have legal grounds to enforce it. Ditto the use of floorplan driven tour pages (in Australia).

Mark

Message posted by vrboy on May-12-2005 at 8:17am

Australia
August-09-2002
64 Posts

Hi All, I also heard about htis patent today, as far as I can tell they have no legal claim. I did a lot of research and enlisted the help of patent lawyers when we began our company and was told unless anyone claiming anything can prove they invented the source technology they can only then claim an exlusive patent, obviously these guys want to make enemies and dont realise the strength that comes in numbers. Another vr company I spoke with today alerted me to the absurd claims and I certainly will be joining the fight if any patents are thrown at me, I recieved similar threatening letters from another company closer to 2000 and nothing came of it as they lost their patent fight.

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My Link

Message posted by simon on May-12-2005 at 9:08am

January-14-2003
141 Posts

I would ignore it and them. I have consistently published such 'Interactive Floor Plan' tours on the Internet either as part of a mini website or linked to the major Australian Real Estate Websites (eg realestate.com.au, domain.com.au) since 2000. There were many similar examples way before this. They lodged their application in 2003. Clients, the above websites (and others) plus my archived copies would support this claim. Sad to say that I still use examples pre-dating this on one of my websites, just the excuse I needed to avoid updating it! I know I am one of many who can make similar claims. Just wonder if we should contact the Aussie patent office to point out how farcical their claim is or just wait for them to disappear.

Message posted by 360texas on May-12-2005 at 2:41pm

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

LOLLL... maybe we should poste the Aussie Patent Office email address and phone number. Then see what happens

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

Visit 360texas.com

Message posted by 360VUE on May-13-2005 at 9:07am

Australia
May-13-2005
1 Posts

They have sent me the letter.
These Pro active tours have not one client or Photographer.

I have up loaded the letter they send me.

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

We need support from all VR to Join and put them down.

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Massimo Debattista
360VUE Interactive P/L
Coogee - NSW
Australia

Message posted by 360texas on May-13-2005 at 10:55am

United States
June-12-2002
2240 Posts

Just a quick note.

After reading the patent it seems they have an online program that automatically generates webpages. They suspect that you are using a "system" to generate your linkable tours. Customers have to register and pay a fee to be able to use his online program to create new linkable webpages.

If you build your webpages with a webpage software like Dreamweaver or Frontpage.. I don't think that this manual process is the same "System" they are using.

You sell your website to your clients after which they have full control over the content. However, the end result may look the same as their automatic 'Rent by month service' method.

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/s/
Dave
Forum Moderator for
EasyPano - Panoweaver
Pano2VR

Visit 360texas.com

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