A number of friends have asked, so here are my abbreviated thoughts
about the IPIX intellectual property coming up for sale. Please
forgive this cross posting to multiple lists, but I think everyone in
the VR industry should be aware and discussing this. Further
information about the sale of IPIX assets can be found at:
I suspect there is probably very little value to the IPIX patents
today. (Of course, you never know who might be willing to pay what
at an auction.) My logic is as follows:
The U.S. patents that IPIX owns are no longer very unique -- quite a
few other patents have been issued over the last 10 years for almost
identical technologies and methods (involving fisheye capture,
digital assembly and computer/video screen presentation). The U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office has perhaps been overly liberal in
reviewing applications and granting patents, so there seems to be
tremendous overlap in many that I have looked up.
A search through the online records at the U.S. Patent Office's web
site -- http://www.uspto.gov -- makes for interesting (but tedious)
reading, and documents many dozens of fisheye-originated VR
technology patents assigned to companies like, BeHere, Hewlett
Packard, Apple (thanks to Ken Turkowski and Yaolin Xiong), iMove,
Taoshot, Micoy, Ford Oxaal and of course, IPIX, among others.
(Fujinon and Nikon have also received patents for new fisheye lens
systems or designs in the last five years.)
While I am neither an engineer nor a patent attorney, my cursory
glimpse of some of these patents gives me the sense that there are
dozens, if not hundreds of different patents covering many different
ways to skin the same (fisheye VR authoring) cat.
As we learned from IPIX's actions, it's all a matter of who has the
money and resources to go after others who *might* be infringing part
or all of the patent(s) they hold.
Add to this the fact that IPIX settled at least one patent claim
against their own patent(s) by Ford Oxaal (rather than having a court
resolve which patents were more valid), implying that IPIX's
technology probably remains encumbered or restricted by claims of at
least one other. Why would you want to buy an IPIX patent if you
were still subject to restrictions of a license or patent of a third
party in order to utilize it?
Any potential purchaser of IPIX patents should look at this and
likely be wary of the value they'd be gaining for their money. To be
honest, I don't believe there would be much, unless you were the
holder of similar patents (such as Oxaal) and wanted to expand your
patent portfolio in order to pursue legal action against others. I
guess that's the biggest concern in the VR industry -- that some
party will acquire IPIX's patents (whether of any value or not) in
order to further stifle innovation and development by others through
legal threats.
Unfortunately, we've seen the result of such actions over the last
decade with the demise of iMove and the shut down of Helmut Dersch's
site-- primarily because of IPIX's aggressive legal actions. In
spite of all this, IPIX ultimately failed themselves. Not only was
innovation in the VR industry stifled overall, but those who
invested millions of dollars collectively in IPIX's stock have been
left holding the bag for the cost of the company's failure. The
strategy was a lose-lose proposition for almost everyone involved.
The next step, I think, is to figure out whether we can help prevent
this happening to the VR industry again. I think open discussion
from all in this and other VR groups is appropriate. The opinions
above are mine as an individual, and should not be interpreted to
necessarily represent those of any other individuals or groups.
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