On the 6th July, the European Parliament voted as follows on the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. Read the article on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_the_patentability_of_computer-implemented_inventions
648 against, 18 for and 14 abstentions
Thus rejecting the proposal.
The bill was intended to remove individual EU nations patent systems in favour of a Europe wide common process and has been fiercely debated for a number of years. Patent applications will continue to be handled by individual, national patent offices.
Although the directive may have clarified and unified the patent system in Europe, opponents considered it would have been exploited in favour of large software companies wishing to patent software which would limit opportunities for small businesses and the future of open source developments.
US Patent Number 6,853,373 B2, titled “Methods, Apparatus and Computer Program Products for Modeling Three-Dimensional Colored Objects,” has been granted to Raindrop Geomagic.
Abstract
Methods, apparatus and computer program products can generate light weight but highly realistic and accurate colored models of three-dimensional colored objects. The colored model may be generated from a second plurality of points that define a coarse digital representation of the surface and at least one texture map containing information derived from a first plurality of colored points that define a fine digital representation of the surface. This derivation is achieved by mapping points within the texture map to the fine digital representation of the three-dimensional surface. Colored scan data may be used to construct the fine digital representation as a triangulated surface (i.e., triangulation) using a wrapping operation. This triangulated surface may be a two-manifold with or without nonzero boundary and the colored scan data may constitute raw point data with each datum comprising three real numbers (x-,y-, z-coordinates) providing geometric information and three integer numbers (r-,g-,b-values) providing color information. Operations are then performed to create the coarse digital representation from the fine digital representation and also preferably create a plurality a texture maps from the fine and coarse digital representations. One map may contain color information and another map may recover geometric detail lost in the simplification process associated with generating the coarse digital representation from the fine digital representation. An additional map may also be generated that corrects for differences in directions of normal vectors associated with the coarse and fine digital representations.
Did you know that bounding boxes were invented in 1998? US Patent 6,243,097
http://patft.uspto.gov/…RS=6243097
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