PATNEWS: Getty Images' patent: fraudulent or pathetic crap?

!20050513 Getty Images' patent: fraudulent or pathetic crap?

[Note: the following is very insulting, but the patent is real crap.]

Patents for tools/methods related to art and entertainment are steadily
growing, and increasingly, so are utility patents for art and entertainment
- the next hot area of patenting. And sadly, there will be a lot of
crappy poorly searched patents issuing. The song does always remain the
same. Like the following ugly song - a patent either utterly fraudulent
or utterly pathetic in its treatment of the prior art.

The patent is issued to Getty Images, a $100,000,000+ corporation in
Seattle that has a very large database of imagery it sells. The patent
is 6,735,583, titled "Method and system for classifying and locating
media content". The essence of the patent, minus the pompous language,
is using a hierarchical structured vocabulary to index media (especially
images) for storage and retrieval in databases. The patent was filed in
November 2000, and cites only one non-patent prior art item. The first
claim:

    What is claimed is:

    1. A method in a computer system for classifying and locating a
    plurality of media content units using a structured vocabulary stored
    in a data repository, the structured vocabulary having a plurality
    of terms ordered such that the relationship of each term to each
    other term is inherent in the ordering, comprising:

    for each media content unit,
        [like art and architecture images]

    determining a term within the structured vocabulary that represents
    a characteristic of the media content unit; and
        [like in a structured vocabulary from a thesaurus]

    associating an identifier of the determined term with the media
    content unit so that the media content unit is characterized by the
    determined term;
        [labeling the image with the index term]

    receiving a request to locate a media content unit based upon a
    search term; and
        [receiving a query using the index term]

    using the structured vocabulary to determine a collection of media
    content units that are characterized by the search term.
        [retrieving images labelled with the index term]


Again, a structured vocabulary for indexing and searching images. Here's
the problem for Getty Images - this idea is at least 20 years old, and
either the Getty Images people are too incompetent to know this, or know
it to the extent that not telling the PTO what they know has to be fraud.
Given what I know about this field (i.e. that there is 102 prior art), I
have prepared a probability analysis of why I think Getty Images committed
fraud before the PTO with regards to this patent, probably by withholding
prior art they knew about.

For over twenty years in the field of (multi)media databases, there has
been something called the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, a hierarchical
structured vocabulary for indexing, and at least manually searching,
ummmmmmmm, MEDIA CONTENT. Currently, the AAT is maintained by the Getty
Museum (www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/aat). AAT
is very well known throughout the art library world. I find it impossible
to believe that no one at Getty Images headquarters knows about AAT -
impossible. Thus the first whiff of fraud is the fact that the patent
specification nowhere uses the word "thesaurus".

Even worse, the AAT is nowhere mentioned in the 6,735,583 patent spec
(nor is mentioned a similar classification system that is part of the
Library of Congress classification scheme for art - Class N - you can
see it at http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/lcco_n.pdf). Not mentioning
either classification system, impossible for them not to know about,
is the second whiff of fraud. [NOTE: as more and more art is being
patented, the Patent and Trademark Office really needs to create a new
patent class based either on the AAT or the LoC's Class N].

    [NOTE: technically, since issued patents, as publications, are
    media content, all of the online patent databases used with the
    PTO hierarchical structured classification system are relevant
    prior art. Does the PTO know it has a structured classification
    system? The patent lawyer involved must have known - in such
    cases, aren't they obligated to have their client mention such
    prior art?]

Unless you are a vegatative brain dead programmer involved with image
databases (the patent has five inventors), it is impossible that you
have not heard of the AAT. And if you did hear of it, and did an easy
check that AAT is over 20 years old, unless you are a vegatative brain
dead programmer involved with image databases, you would figure that
someone in the last 20 years published something that said "Gee, we have
this wonderful AAT for manual searching - how about using it for online
searching?" Especially in light of the use of the Library of Congress
Class N scheme on their computers. So at a minimum, the five inventors
from Getty Images are vegatative brain dead programmers - pathetic.

However, that is unlikely (since I haven't heard Congress talking about
these five people). So at least one of them had to know about AAT,
and didn't tell the Patent Office. Now maybe such a person only knew
about the manual uses of AAT, and not being taught about Section 103
or PTO rules against implementing known methods on computers, such a
person didn't think it was necessary to mention AAT. But this is also
as unlikely, but if so, still at the pathetic level. Given Getty Images'
large revenues and extensive contacts with the art world, I tend to learn
towards unlikely.

So if any of the five inventors knew of AAT, I can't believe that such
a person wouldn't have a) gone to the Getty Museum online library catalog
to see what was available on AAT, or b) googled to see how people were
using AAT (and given its' 20+ year history, any mushroom could have
determined a reasonable probability that the AAT was used electronically
by someone, oh I DON'T FRIGGIN KNOW LIKE MAYBE THE GETTY MUSEUM!!!!).
And to not mention the Library of Congress online catalogs, huh?

Getty Images is a large company with lots of employees. I find it
impossible to believe that none of the five inventors knew nothing
about AAT - impossible. And if the five did know nothing, did see nothing,
I find it impossible to believe that no one else at Getty Images who
knew about the patent also did know nothing, did see nothing. (Well,
at least a theater company has plenty of candidates for Sargeant Schultz
in any remake of Hogan's Heroes). But if they did know, then it has to
be fraud to not have mentioned AAT in the patent specification. If this
patent is every asserted, I would love to be involved with the discovery.

This type of corporate contempt for patent prior art has to stop - now.
Especially when searchers apply for a patent on searching and don't do
any searching themselves.

Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service

Received on Fri Apr 15 2005 - 12:20:31