Quotulatiousness

May 12, 2014

Amazon gets a patent for a decades-old photographic technique

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Government, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:42

Stephen Shankland provides another exhibit in the patent-system-is-broken case:

Amazon - Studio Arrangement patent

Photographers are hooting derisively at a patent Amazon won in 2014 for a photography lighting technique that’s been in use for decades, a patent that’s helped undermine the credibility of the patent system.

Amazon’s patent 8,676,045, granted in March and titled “Studio Arrangement,” describes a particular configuration of the photography subject in the foreground and a brightly lit white screen behind, an approach that “blows out” the background to cleanly isolate the subject.

It’s a fine idea, but not a novel invention, argued David Hobby, a professional photographer since 1988 who runs the Strobist site that for years has been a popular source of advice on flash photography. He used the approach himself as a staff photographer on his first job decades ago for a business publication.

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