OV Patent Infringement Claims

Published Feb 09, 2012 00:00 AM
PUBLIC - This article does not require an IPVM subscription. Feel free to share.

In this note, we review the key patents cited by ObjectVideo in their litigation against Bosch, Samsung and Sony, focusing on the most fundamental claims that can impact video surveillance applications.

The specific patents cited in the lawsuit / investigations are:

From the patents, here are a few key sections that describe the key claims OV makes and is charging other companies as violating:

  • From 6696945: "Implements a video tripwire system, in which a virtual tripwire, of arbitrary shape, is placed in digital video using computer-based video processing techniques. The virtual tripwire is then monitored, again using computer-based video processing techniques. As a result of the monitoring, statistics may be compiled, intrusions detected, events recorded, responses triggered, etc. For example, in one embodiment of the invention, the event of a person crossing a virtual tripwire in one direction may trigger the capture of a snapshot of that person, for future identification."
  • From 6696945 on the topics of calibration, both manual and automatic: "System calibration may be performed, generally speaking, by either explicit calibration, in which the system is told (or automatically determines) the necessary calibration parameters of sensing device 1, or by implicit calibration, in which the system is told (or automatically determines) the size of an object of interest at various locations in the field-of-view of sensing device."
  • From 7613324 on applications of detecting changes in posture, "Automatic, real-time detection and alerting in case of a person falling or getting up can be advantageous in a wide variety of situations. Such detection and alerting may enable dispatching help quickly and automatically in places like malls, stores, parking lots, assisted living communities, hospitals, or during duress monitoring in law enforcement. An alert may even be a life saver in the homes of elderly or sick people living alone, who may not be able to get up and ask for help after falling."
  • From 7868912 on the use of video primitives, "Event discriminators are identified with one or more objects (whose descriptions are based on video primitives), along with one or more optional spatial attributes, and/or one or more optional temporal attributes. For example, an operator can define an event discriminator (called a "loitering" event in this example) as a "person" object in the "automatic teller machine" space for "longer than 15 minutes" and "between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m." Event discriminators can be combined with modified Boolean operators to form more complex queries."

The claims made are very broad and could easily apply to most video analytic systems, especially if Courts hold up 'automatic calibration' and the use of video primitives (essentially setting up rules).

OV's legal compliant [link no longer available] calls out the following specific violations:

  • Bosch's IVA 4.0 running on a variety of Bosch cameras and encoders, specifically cites Bosch's use of calibration, the setup of virtual tripwires and the ability to detect a change in aspect ratio of a human target
  • Samsung cameras cited as violating OV patents include SNB-5000 [link no longer available], SNB-3000 [link no longer available], SNV-3080, SNV-5010, etc., specifically cites Samsung's use of calibration, the setup of virtual tripwires
  • Sony DEPA cameras including a long list of Sony network cameras, specifically cites Sony's use of calibration, the setup of virtual tripwires