Transcript ppt

TCSP – Patent Liability Analysis
Project Overview
Overall Objectives
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Create an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) which is
capable of the following:
Autonomous flight
GPS navigation
Ground photography
Similar Patents & Products #1
“Precision
Approach and Control”
U.S. Patent #20080071431 – Filed 9/19/2006
 Camera with rangefinder, measures angle and
distance to points on the ground
 Nav system for measuring latitude/longitude
 Controller for movement of aircraft
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Similar Patents & Products #1
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Similarities
– Camera mounted on aircraft
– Covers GPS navigation, autonomous control (Claims 4-6)
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Differences
– Described camera is specified as rangefinder
– Navigation (GPS-based or otherwise) depends on
measurements taken by said camera (azimuth, elevation,
slant range, etc.)
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Solution
– Use camera strictly for capturing images, not data.
Similar Patents & Products #2
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System and a method for enabling a vehicle to
track a preset path
U.S. Patent #5610815, filed Feb 1990
Position info derived from GPS satellites “or other
sources when the satellites are not in view…”
Navigation obtained using position info, route info,
obstacle detection, on-board vehicle data
Similar Patents & Products #2
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Similarities
– Navigation using GPS receiver data
– Servo commands to control vehicle direction
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Differences
– Language of and examples in document indicate the
design is primarily for mining and other ground vehicles.
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Solution
– Don’t abandon our plane in favor of an RC car.
Similar Patents & Products #3
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“System and Method for automatically collecting
images of objects at geographic locations and
displaying same in online directories “
U.S. Patent#7155336, filed March 2004
Camera and GPS receiver mounted on vehicle
Receiver determines geographic location, camera
captures images, both time-stamped and recorded
together
Each image correlated with street address based on
its associated geographic location, can be used in
online directory (yellowpages.com)
Similar Patents & Products #3
Claims of note:
Claims 1 and 3 –
described system in
which object images
are captured using
digital still camera
Similar Patents & Products #3
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Similarities
– Camera and GPS receiver mounted on vehicle (car, plane,
etc.) and used in conjunction with each other.
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Differences
– Image capture is time-stamped and not at all dependent
upon the GPS data.
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Solution
Avoid design that implements independent camera capture
(i.e. taking many pictures and using corresponding GPS
data in map creation)
The End