Re: [Algorithms] Pixar patent

[Corrinne Y. <cor...@ho...>]

-- The following is _on topic_, not an argument against patent! :)

-- Spoke to Tony and Tony.

-- 1. Tony De Rose (the guy on the patent) says that subdivision itself is
extremely old, and that it is not patented in anyway, and they had not and
will not ever patent subdivision itself.

-- 2. He also said what the patent was applied for was _not_ the obvious
texture coordinates interpolation, nor were it straight from the 1998
SIGGRAPH paper (it is work in extension), and yes the paper did cover an
efficient tex gen interpolation, and that is _not_ what he patented (but his
extension).

-- 3. The extension he developed then patented is in his opinion too time
consumingly overkill for interactive apps anyway, and it is safe for all of
us to use subdivision, and it is safe for all of us to do tex gen
interpolation.

-- 4. Even then, he is more than happy to share his work, in subsequent
SIGGRAPH papers formally, or before then, just explain the mechanism to me
and Tony (A) (then I post it here), after they are off crunch mode (probably
on some nifty Pixar short films or other cool things :D ). And that _if_
game app programmers do find any interactive use for this, that Pixar as a
company has no problem licensing even this particular technique out for free
to us.

-- Now I am only a programmer and not a lawyer, so I don't know how the
above (what Tony De Rose says) correlates to the patents below.

-- But since I am a programmer and not a lawyer, I am very much looking
forward of the (describedly more convoluted) tex gen description and
explanation which is an extension of his 98 SIGGRAPH paper. When he would
tell me and explain the whole thing to me, I don't know yet. :(

Corrinne




----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Warden" <Pet...@vi...>
To: <gda...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 5:18 AM
Subject: [Algorithms] Pixar patent


> For anybody else who's interested, the patent number is 6,037,949, and you
> can look at the patent at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html