ECE 477 Digital Systems Senior Design Project Spring 2006
Homework 9: Patent Liability Analysis
Due: Friday, March 31, at NOON
Team Code Name: ___No Glove, No Handshake______Group No. __7___
Team Member Completing This Homework: __Brian Eng______
E-mail Address of Report Author: ______beng______@ purdue.edu
Evaluation:
Component/Criterion / Score / Multiplier / PointsIntroduction and Summary
/ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / X 1Results of Patent/Product Search / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / X 4
Analysis of Patent Liability / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / X 2
Action Recommended / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / X 1
List of References / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / X 1
Technical Writing Style / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / X 1
TOTAL
Comments:
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1.0 Introduction
The underlying function of the design project herein is to control a mouse cursor on a computer screen by means of capturing and processing hand gestures and arm movements. The user will wear a glove with flex (bend) and pressure sensors and an accompanying wrist module with accelerometers to capture data. A mouse click is represented by the user bending his finger towards his palm, thus activating the flex sensor, and depressing the pressure sensor on the user's thumb at the same time. Mouse movement is represented by arm movements which are captured by 2 accelerometers. This data is then sent over RF to a base station which communicates to a computer via USB in order to ultimately tell the computer to move the cursor and/or activate a click event. There may be patent liability issues concerning the capturing, processing, and translating of the user bending his finger and depressing a sensor into a computer input device signal as well as utilizing accelerometer data to appropriate a computer input device signal.
2.0 Results of Patent and Product Search
After an extensive search through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) online resources, 3 patents were deemed to share substantial design implementations as well as substantially performing the same function as the project that was previously described. The first step that was taken was to search the USPTO for “human computer interface” in order to get a feel as to what types of computer interfaces have been patented. This search yielded 328 results and most of the results dealt with force feedback and haptics. Despite this, a narrower search field was determined as many hand based devices that were found from the initial search included the words “data glove” in their claims to describe a glove which captured and processed sensory data. As a result, a search for “data glove” AND “interface” was made to try and narrow down the results. Three-hundred and fifty-four results came up from this search and there were a few patents that had similar implementations of the technologies that our project also utilizes; however, the ultimate functionality was not the same. Finally, a very specific search was made for “glove” AND “accelerometer” which brought back 109 results, most of which did not pertain to any type of interface device but ultimately led to the 3 patents that will be discussed. The reason for searching for “accelerometer” was that the previous 2 searches did not yield any patents that discussed utilizing accelerometer data for computer input. The majority of the finds from the first 2 searches discussed utilizing pressure sensors for computer input.
The first patent which will be discussed is patent 6,242,334 under the title of “Computer data entry and manipulation apparatus and method.” This patent was filed on June 7, 1995 and awarded on July 23, 2002 to Sun Microsystems. The device that this patent covers is an apparatus that generates “control signals for the manipulation of virtual objects in a computer system according to the gestures and positions of an operator's hand...The apparatus includes a glove worn on the hand which includes sensors for detecting the gestures of the hand, as well as hand position sensing means coupled to the glove and to the computer system for detecting the position of the hand with respect to the system.” The main claims are that it is a device to control a computer that has a display and is integrated onto a glove that includes flex sensors to detect finger movements and a position sensor to detect the position of the glove with respect to the display. Furthermore, the claims state that there are 3 receivers to be located near the display for the position sensors to send data to. [1a]
The second patent which will be discussed is patent 5,819,206 under the title of “Method and apparatus for determining position and orientation of a moveable object using accelerometers.” This patent was filed on March 20, 1997 and awarded on October, 1998 to Crossbow Technology, Inc. The method that this patent covers is the method of utilizing multiple accelerometers mounted on a movable object to track its position and orientation in order to generate “computer simulation signals.” In the patent's claims, these “computer simulations signals” include video, audio, tactile, and sensory information. The claims also state that the method is specifically to generate these “computer simulation signals in response to [the] orientation of a movable object from a plurality of electronic linear accelerometers mounted on the movable object.” Additionally, the claims layout the steps to this method which are to process the accelerometer signals, generate orientation and movement signals, and generate computer simulation signals. [1b]
The third and final patent which will be discussed is patent 6,304,840 under the title of “Fingerless glove for interacting with data processing system.” This patent was filed on June 30, 1998 and awarded on October 16, 2001 to U.S. Philips Corporation. The device that is covered under this patent is a “data glove...used for enabling ten-finger-typing with a virtual keyboard.” This system, according to the claims, is comprised of a computer and a fingerless glove that utilizes bending sensors for user-interaction with the computer. In addition, each finger represents a set of keyboard characters. The specific element in this set is determined by the “angle at which the finger is bent at a proximal interphalangeal joint.” [1c]
3.0 Analysis of Patent Liability
First, there is a vital distinction that can be made from patent 6,424,334, “Computer data entry and manipulation apparatus and method,” [1a] and our device despite the fact that they may sound identical. An important fact is that the device covered under this patent clearly states that the position of the glove is always calculated with respect to the display. However, our project does not calculate the glove's position with respect to the display. For our device, the user does not use the display as a reference. The user can be positioned anywhere within range of the base station receiver, and an arm movement to the left by 6 inches at some fixed rate will always yield the same results. This is due to the fact that our project does not utilize position sensors but accelerometers to capture arm movements. Though this is a major difference between the two devices, the similarities are overwhelming. Both devices use a glove which is outfitted with flex sensors and sensors to monitor arm movement and translate the sensory data into the manipulation of an object on a computer screen. In regards to literally infringing on any functions, it is clear that our project's functionality is identical, but we do not literally infringe upon this patent because of the claim that the patented device detects the position of the glove with respect to the display. Our project does not depend on any display-related positioning. In terms of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, our project does not infringe upon the patent. This can again be attributed to the fact that determining arm movements based on accelerometer data rather than position senors is a substantially different way of interpreting arm movements. Also, interpreting arm movements in this manner would also yield substantially different results as discussed before. [2]
With regards to patent 5,819,206, “Method and apparatus for determining position and orientation of a moveable object using accelerometers,” [1b] there is potential for literal infringement. The method of capturing and processing orientation and movement data from multiple accelerometers and utilizing that data in order to generate computer simulation signals as described above for this patent is exactly the same as the method utilized by our project. Both the patented device and our project process “linear acceleration signals from ... [several] ... accelerometers mounted on ... [the] ... object” [1b]. Consequently, our project would also infringe upon the patent based on the doctrine of equivalents due to the fact that a major sub module of our project does substantially the same function in substantially the same way to yield substantially the same results [2].
Although the previous patent was infringed upon literally, our project does not literally infringe upon patent 6,304,840, “Fingerless glove for interacting with data processing system” [1c]. This can be attributed to the fact that the fingers and flex sensor module of our project do not function as keyboard characters; they function as mouse click events. Moreover, our project does not take into consideration multiple angles of bending in order to map several events, in this case computer inputs, on one finger. Another reason why our project does not infringe upon this patent literally is because in our design we do not consider a finger bend as an event that can generate a computer input signal. Our design calls for a finger bend coupled with the touch of a pressure sensor at the same time to generate a computer input signal. Finally, our project does not infringe upon this patent based on the doctrine of equivalents because even though both devices perform substantially the same function, taking data from bend sensors placed on the user's fingers and translating that data into computer inputs, in substantially the same way, the results yielded are substantially different as one yields keyboard character inputs while the other yields mouse click events.
4.0 Action Recommended
In order to alleviate the potential literal infringement incurred from patent 5,819,206, “Method and apparatus for determining position and orientation of a moveable object using accelerometers,” the use of multiple accelerometers must be eliminated. This means our project would have to utilize one accelerometer and one gyroscope, or similar device, in order to achieve our design goals. This would eliminate the literal infringement and infringement based on the doctrine of equivalents as the patent only specifically covers the use of multiple accelerometers in capturing and processing hand/arm movement and orientation.
5.0 Summary
In summary, 3 patents were found that our project had the potential to infringe upon: both literally and based on the doctrine of equivalents. The first patent, “Computer data entry and manipulation apparatus and method,” was for a device that provided the exact functionality of our device. Despite this fact, our device did not infringe upon the patented device as a module of our device preformed a task laid out in the patent's claims substantially different than the patented device and yielded substantially different results. The second patent, “Method and apparatus for determining position and orientation of a moveable object using accelerometers,” would have been infringed both literally and based on the doctrine of equivalents. As a result, a solution to utilize a single accelerometer in our design coupled with a gyroscope was offered in order to alleviate the infringement. The third and last patent, “Fingerless glove for interacting with data processing system,” was not infringed upon at all because the is ultimately used for inputting keyboard characters into a computer as opposed to mouse click events.
List of References
[1] “United States Patent and Trademark Office”, [Online Reference], 2006
Available HTTP: http://www.uspto.gov/
(note: references 1a, 1b, and 1c can be found at reference 1 by searching the patent numbers)
[1a] Patent Number 6,424,334
[1b] Patent Number 5,819,206
[1c] Patent Number 6,304,840
[2] “Doctrine of Equivalents”, [Online Reference], 2006
Available HTTP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_equivalents
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