Show HN: Create image mosaics with Polyfoto
github.comStill working on some bugs, but it's easy to use already.
This technique has been around for a long time but it was patented, and the patent finally expired a few years ago. Fun to see it commoditized like this.
What makes you think patents prevented photo mosaics? There were multiple programs anyone could buy for $50 over 20 years ago.
The basic technique is to scale down images and treat them as high dimensional points, then match them with patches of the main image, also treated as high dimensional points. This can be done efficiently with high dimensional nearest neighbors.
You might be thinking of SIFT, which was a patented and part of the methodology was more efficient high dimensional searching using best bin first kd-trees.
Patents are about processes and if you read this patent it is very specific. Your link even mentions that there have been multiple programs that do this for a long time.
Patents are not only about processes, they can also cover the final product amongst other aspects. The patent in question also does the same [1], as visible via claims 14, 29, 46, 51, whereas the claim 1 is about the "method".
Reading the claim #1 of the said patent, I do not find it "very specific" as you said. It is quite broad within the purposes of making a mosaic image. One way of avoiding infringing claim 1 is to not use a computer for this.
I agree that the Wikipedia page mentions multiple programs doing this for long, however, it has not committed that there has no patent violation and a possibility that the patent holder "has chosen not to bring infringement proceedings" is also cited.
[1] https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/0267124...
The original person said that 'patents prevented photomosaics'.
Also matching by root mean squared error is pretty specific. It is possible to match based on other error criteria.
>> The original person said that 'patents prevented photomosaics'.
I see your point now, although I do not see the original person (@tomcam) explicitly saying 'patents prevented photomosaics'. I only see "Fun to see it commoditized like this." [1]
>> Also matching by root mean squared error is pretty specific. It is possible to match based on other error criteria.
The applicability of the said patent [2] is not limited to use of RMS error. I do not see "root mean square" anywehere in Claim 1 or any independent claim of the patent. That is introduced only in dependent claims like claim 3.
In case you do not already, you may consider reading [3-5] below to understand how coverage of a patent depends on independent and dependent claims.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27532662
[2] https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/0267124...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_application#Claims
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_claim
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_claim#Basic_types_and_c...
It's literally the text from the page you linked
"A mosaic image is formed from a database of source images. More particularly, the source images are analyzed, selected and organized to produce the mosaic image. A target image is divided into tile regions, each of which is compared with individual source image portions to determine the best available matching source image by computing red, green and blue channel root-mean square error. The mosaic image is formed by positioning the respective best-matching source images at the respective tile regions."
I think you took that from the abstract. The abstract, description, or title, of a patent do not determine what a parent covers or not! That is determined by the claims of a patent. The abstract/description/title play a relatively insignificant legal role, these do come in only in some indirect ways.
Please take a look at the claims I have cited in this comment chain, and also read about the importance and relevance of the claims from the links I recommended.
When reading a patent to understand what it covers or not, it's recommended to start with the independent claims.
Hope this helps. :-)
Which claim specifically do you think makes it impossible for someone else to make a photomosaic?
Please read carefully to realize that there were multiple commercial software programs that did this over 20 years ago.
I had no idea a patent existed for this type of software, I figured this current program out through trial and error and a couple of iterations.
How can a developer protect themselves from publishing patented software? Is there any way of knowing if a certain type of program is patented?
>> Is there any way of knowing if a certain type of program is patented?
If you've a seen similar thing pre-existing, chances are that it may be someone's intellectual property, and which then should be respected.
In this particular example, Wikipedia page on photographic mosaics [1] itself has a section on IP aspects of the same [2].
>> How can a developer protect themselves from publishing patented software?
The best approach is to respect the prior art and properly license the same as needed.
At times, a developer may have strong reasons to believe that the related prior patents are either not infringed or are invalid. In this case they should be ready to be challenged.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_mosaic
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_mosaic#Trademark_...
Nice work. Curious what value the patent holder extracted from the original patent that's expired