No it wasn't “IMPROVEMENT IN MACHINES FOR SQUEEZING PUDDLERS BALLS”.*
US Patent Office Grants 'Photography Against A White Background' Patent To Amazon
from the maybe-someone-at-the-office-checked-the-wrong-box? dept
The US Patent and Trademark Office is frequently maligned for its baffling/terrible decisions... and rightfully so. Because this is exactly the sort of thing for which the USPTO should be maligned. Udi Tirosh at DIY Photography has uncovered a recently granted patent for the previously-unheard of process of photographing things/people against a white backdrop... to of all companies, Amazon.
I am not really sure how to tag this other than a big #fail for the USPTO, or a huge Kudos for Amazon's IP attorneys. In a patent simply called Studio arrangement Amazon took IP ownership on what we all call shooting against a seamless white backdrop.Here's a photo of Amazon's bold new photography concept, which pretty much looks like every photo studio in the history of photo studios.
There's plenty of technical text to separate Amazon's white-backdropped photo studio from the thousands in existence prior to 2011 (the date of filing), which shows just how innovative Amazon's concept is...MORE*US Patent #190,385 was granted to E. Suckow in 1877. I'm not quite sure how this works:
