US Patent or Pending US Patent Impacting Pano2VR Users

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mikeb
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Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 12:58 pm
Location: Melbourne, Florida USA

I recently came across this US patent or application for a US patent on Google. I was wondering if anyone knows the status of this and how it might impact those of us in the USA at least...

http://www.google.com/patents/US20140189477

I am posting this in the skins forum because, if I understand correctly, what this gentleman is claiming as his invention is, I think, already a feature in Pano2VR skins. In his case, from scanning his web site, it appears he accomplishes the same effect using Krpano and Fancybox. I am pretty sure some of you have been using this same capability within Pano2VR skins for many years prior to this gentleman's application for a US patent.

Essentially, if I understand correctly, what he is claiming is that he (in 2012, or at least this is when he applied) invented the concept of having a hotspot in a virtual tour that opens up content from a third party website within a virtual tour...for example, clicking on a hotspot and launching a YouTube video within a virtual tour. He says it pretty much covers any kind of third party web content and is quite explicit that this includes YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I would be very interested in better understanding the current status of this, as well as your thoughts on whether I am understanding this correctly. Then, if I am, I am wondering what might be done about this since in my view all or much of what he details looks like existing "prior art" to me.

Kind Regards,
mikeb
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360Texas
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The patent number contains A1 which apparently means that it is a pre grant application. Probably means the application has not yet been granted.

Content management for virtual tours
US 20140189477 A1

See Use Code A1 : http://www.uspto.gov/patents/ebc/kindcodesum.jsp

I did a USPTO patent search: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... 0140189477

It returned with this comment:

Searching US Patents Collection...
Results of Search in US Patents Collection db for:
PN/20140189477: 0 patents.

No patents have matched your query


I would suspect that the 3rd party social media site owners like facebook etc would deal with this because they only let certain licensed folks deep link content on their sites so they developed and own their intellectual property rights.
Dave
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Hopki
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Hi,
Iv just had a quick look at some of my older projects.
I have Hopki Media projects going back to 2009 that have hotspots that link to websites, e-mail clients, PDF's on other servers and YouTube.
All my Hopki Media skins were built between 2009 and early 2010, before stopping development and being a Gnome full time.
I am sure there are many more examples from others that go back further.
Bottom line peoples Prior Art
Need I say more :D
Hopki
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360Texas
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I have Hopki Media projects going back to 2009 that have hotspots that link to websites, e-mail clients, PDF's on other servers and YouTube.
We too have media projects also going back to 1998. Some did have hotspots that link to other websites, e-mail clients, .pdf's. None to YouTube .

I am also sure that many other US based forum members have similar website projects.
Dave
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