Google's Celebrity facial recognition patent

Well, it is certainly an interesting piece of news. Google's patent application for the celebrity facial recognition has been published by the USPTO. The patent application is titled  “Automatically Mining Person Models of Celebrities for Visual Search Applications.” It is definitely an interesting approach. The patent application is apt and in place with google's idea to launch Face Recognition apparel for mobile devices. Amidst the debate over the pros and cons of this technology, the celebrity face recognition patent database has been tested with about a thousand celebrities. The technology works on the fact that it precisely identifies the celebrities facial images using an intra model analysis and other combination technologies. The patent application states "Recognition is  performed based on precision and recall to identify the face images as belonging to a celebrity or indicate that the face is unknown". Certainly it is an interesting technology but not to forget the fact that every technology has it merits and demerits.Well how successful and popular this technology will be amongst the technology savvy, for that we have to wait for a while.

(Image by Jakub Krechowicz)

Google to translate EU patents

Google has come up with an agreement with Munich based European patent authorities this Thursday,aiding in translating about 50 million patents.Well last year in November 2010, Google announced to take this project.Google is expected  to provide translations in 28 European languages. The entire process is estimated to be accomplished by 2014. Google Inc. will only provide the translations without altering the legal aspects associated with the patent documents.Along with the European languages, Google is also working towards providing translations in Russian,Chinese, Korean and Japanese. 

As the European continent enjoys plethora of  official languages, it becomes extremely important to provide a substantial linguistic communication method like translation. It will surely improve access to the patents and better understanding of the patent documents in one's own language. Google's online mechanized translation is expected to aid researchers ,inventors and applicants who will be benefitted with such a technology during filing of patents ,online search for patent documents,etc. All in all, a crisp and decent  move to ensure better regulation of Intellectual property.

( Image by Yaroslav B )

Google bagged the top slot at the Global brand index 2011

Google made it to the top slot at the global 500 list of world's top brands. Google wins the slot by acquiring $44.3 billion brand value. The greater and widespread use of internet and google's continuous efforts to launch new technologies all over these years, has enabled it to hit the top slot. Microsoft bagged the second slot with a valuation of about $42.8 billion. It's surprisingly true that the US  technology based companies acquired 13 positions in the Top 20 slot at the global brand index, 2011. Coca cola loses its position in the top 10 list of the world's top brands. This year Coca cola's brand value comes to about $25 billion, which recorded a sharp drop of $10 billion from the last year 2010, when the brand was estimated about $35 billion. 

Amongst the international phone brands, Apple registered itself in the top 10 list with a brand value of about $29.5 billion whereas Nokia witnessed a steep fall with a valuation of about $9.9 billion this year. To conclude, it is very obvious that this year many brands witnessed a steep fall and on the other hand many brands strike back by acquiring greater markets and  revenues, all in all, an interesting valuation.

(Image by Svilen Milev)

Another lawsuit for Google and Amazon

Google and Amazon have been sued recently by software development company MasterObjects, TechCrunch , was the first to report the infringement suit .It is noted that MasterObjects obtained  Patent (US patent no. 7,752,326), for "System and method for utilizing asynchronous client server communication objects" on July 6, 2010. Master Objects claimed infringement against Amazon for using "custom search suggestions" for its sale of products, saying that amazon has been exploiting its technology right from 2004 for its products sale ( that's the same year when MasterObjects filed their Patent Application for the technology). Later this week on friday MasterObjects Targeted Google also, for the same Patent infringement suit, against using the "Custom search suggestion" or "Instant search drop down feature" for their browsers. Well, google has been using the instant search feature, right after its launch in September last year.

Although the "google suggest" was launched in the year 2004, for suggestions relating to real time search queries. Anyways, my point is simple, the "instant search" or the "custom search suggestions" are being currently used by many online search providers. To name a few Bing search, ebay, Yahoo all uses the real time search suggestions. So, it is indeed surprising why MasterObject picked out, Amazon, ( which is primarily an online shopping portal)  to start the litigation spree , which followed  google later on , and who knows many more to add on the list , in the near future. 

 Surprisingly when I visited MasterObjects website, there is a panel called "Demo finder Quest Field" ( i guess similar to instant suggest ), and the introduction page says:  " Unlike similar "autosuggest" and "autocomplete" applications on popular websites (such as Amazon, YouTube, and iTunes), the patented QuestFields technology provides an out-of-the-box generic solution that works on any web page and connects to any content source." I guess it is well stated there, who will be the prospective targets! Anyways for the twist and turns in the case, we have to wait and see what MasterObjects has in store for the future.

(Image by link)

Microsoft and Google join hands against patent troll

Well isn't it interesting to see the tech giants Google and Microsoft join hands, who are almost ready to file allegations, constant altercations, litigating each other over issues like search results copyrights etc. Yes, its true as Google and Microsoft poses as co plaintiff's against GeoTag Inc., which sued over 300 firms in the recent past. This whopping data gives GeoTag Inc., acting as a patent troll suing an ample number of entities last year. 

Considering the future prospects and saving Google and  Microsoft's Bing maps from future allegations and controversies, both the tech giants filed recent lawsuit on March Ist 2011, invalidating the geo tag's patent (US Patent No. 5,930,474), on the context of existence of prior art during the filing of above mentioned patent. This could probably exempt some burden from the clients of Google and Microsoft who were sued by GeoTag Inc. recently from using their mapping services for the location of stores.Well what happens next will be an interesting issue but I shouldn't forget to mention that last September Google was similarly sued by Skyhook Wireless over location battle. The near future will reflect the recent developments in this case which will be worth watching.

( Image by Maxime Perron Caissy)

Google vs Oracle legal battle still continues

Google legal battle with Oracle may take a new turn with Google's decision to ask USPTO to re-examine a number of Oracle patents.Google requested  ex parte reexamination of four Oracle America patents - U.S. Patent Nos. 5,966,702, 6,061,520, 6,125,447 & Re 38,104 – related to the Java platform. This result is in conjunction with the Google-Oracle battle over intellectual property rights with Oracle litigating against Google claiming Google backed Android Operating system violated Oracle's based java patents and copyrights.Looking at the time span and statistics of USPTO exparte re- examination requests (patent re-examinations on average take about 26 months). With these statistics it appears that there will be a significant delay in the actual trial which gives an absolutely different turn to the case.On the other side if the infringement is proved it could lead to loss of royalties as well as the market shares and dominance affecting both the tech giant firms.Well the due course of time will direct the outcomes on further proceedings in this case.

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Google files patent application for social networking face recognition

The tech giant Google is reported to file a patent application in Europe august last year, which is supposedly published on Feb10,2011.

The Application defines how the availability of social networking profile data can increase the accuracy of facial recognition. Google has been working diligently since 2009 towards "Real time google search" but decided to delay implementing facial recognition until 2011. The technique involves checking visual queries against images accessible through social networking applications, calendar applications, and collaborative applications. Images obtained from these applications can then be compared for similarity to create a ranked list of possible identities to be used in conjunction with other search-related data.Surprisingly the filing took place a week before, it announced search engine like.com. Image courtesy link.