Ipix is History
The VR photography community is celebrating the end of a commercial bully. The trading of Ipix Corporation stocks have been halted and bankruptcy has been publicly announced.
Ipix was a big company that was able to patent the use of wide-angle lens (including fish-eye: 180 degrees) to create 360˚ panoramas or VR photos/video. Patent # 5,877,801 granted on March 9, 1999 implied that iPix had INVENTED this technique of image capture and anyone who wanted to use this invention would have license (pay royality) to the company or get sued. Ipix did successfully sue a number of persons and companies.
The good news for now is that iPix is gone. The bad news is that another company/entity may buy the patent and become the next bully in our block. If this happens, we the VR photography community will continue our resistance against this new form of evil.
5 Opinions so far
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About time! A victory for all of us. How can a company give out private information to our competitors? These bullies tried to stifle the growth of Virtual Reality. Good riddance you waste of internet time. From Realistic Estates - Yehaa!
By David Goudge on 08.08.06 5:06 am
Aren’t you photographers happy you purchased from Easypano? No license costs and a product thats better than iPIX could produce.
By Realistic Estates Australia on 08.08.06 5:12 am
Justice has been served!
By Easypano user on 08.08.06 5:13 am
Like I mentioned on another comment: A user on heise.de had the idea of starting an open source initiative to collect and raise money to buy out and free the patents. I think it’s a great idea and could prove the power of OO. Fight back with their own weapons! How do we start?
By Walter Rafelsberger on 08.10.06 2:49 pm
Still the greatest visual perception of the century eyebeholding
By craig gionta on 11.06.06 8:15 pm
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