Looking at the situation my initial response is that Silvers should have gotten some sort of patent on just his code but not claimed to have invented photomosaics. The work and strife that goes into creating a code that works without error of some sort would make me want to patent my own work. However, inventor of the photomosaic as his title on his website states is just not true. Photomosaics were being used long before he wrote a code for them.
But he did make it past the "patent jury" twice so maybe there is some truth in his inventorship. Maybe his code approached it from such a new way that it is sufficiently "nonobvious." I did read that his code not only analyzes the color of each photo but also the "texture" (visual texture) associated with it in order to create the mosaic.
Honestly though, I really don't like the arrogant Robert Silvers so I would take the patent away from him in a heartbeat.
Jessica, sorry to be a bit negative on this, but professor Oldham did say we had to respond to someone, but if a point of your argument is that you'd take away his patent because of arrorgance, is rather biased. If patents were given based on how nice a person was, then a lot of them wouldn't exist. I agree he is undeserving of a patent, but for the fact that he did not do anything that was truly "nonobvious" as the fact that we are able to create a simple photomosaic program with the lab shows that he didn't do something truly groundbreaking enough to merit a patent. Of course this is all my opinion and mostly to satisfy professor oldham, so take it as much as you like.
ReplyDelete^^ this guy
ReplyDeleteI see your point. If people were making photo mosaics long before Silvers, why should he be credited as the creator of photo mosaics? However, I think it is important that he streamlined the process of creating a photo mosaic and the code is certainly complex enough that I think he deserves some sort of credit for creating this.
What we've been arguing in class is that "non-obvious" seems very obvious in hindsight. Therefore, it's difficult to mention him getting past the patent jury twice due to the non-obvious nature of his work.
For what it's worth, I don't like arrogant Silvers either. He may be Silvers, but he's nothing but bronze in my book.
(boooooooooo)