Please see Industry Patents .
And here all this time I thought one just pushed [GO] when the Stage Manager said to.
And here all this time I thought one just pushed [GO] when the Stage Manager said to.
Patent for Operating a Lighting Console
- Thread starterderekleffew
- Start date
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
There is so much prior art on this that there is no way it will stand up. Patents are useless until they win a court case.
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
Thats what I'm hoping is a judge will see this in their court and laugh...
The abstract was plenty for me.
I'm not a lawyer, I don't play one on TV. However, my understanding is that you can not get a patent on something that any logical person would think up. We have had touch screen consoles for at least 10-15? years. Its pretty easy to relate down the road that when mutli-touch screens got cheap enough, those too would appear in lighting consoles.
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
But then comes the issue of how we view multi-touch, It doesn't necessarily fall under the touch screen op. Since Apple has been using the way that their devices sense multi-touch as a platform to sue other companies such as HTC and other companies utilizing the same system.
This could go two ways, One way MA uses it as a way to boost money for the company by charging for licenses to manufacture and sell products utilizing multi-touch technology.
Or, they could limit the market for quite some time on multi-touch and being the sole manufacturer of multi-touch consoles.
1974, if one includes the "light pen" stylus of the Skirpan AutoCue. Which by the way, did result in a patent dispute and possibly contributed to the demise of the first memory console used on Broadway.
jglodeklights
Well-Known Member
Not a lawyer BUT even though the application date was 2008, multi-touch systems for replacement of analog controls have been actualized for even a few years before that. As such, the use of a multi-touch surface for control should not alone, as Footer pointed out, be prevented in other systems. However, the method by which inputs are utilized, is what this really seems to be a patent on. It seems, to me, quite floaty and derivative of the way in which other systems, like those of Apple, function. The fact that because it deals specifically with how one utilizes a lighting console is where things get tricky. Is it logical that we would arrive at the same conclusion purely on the basis of it replacing analog controls? Because of how we currently use multi-touch would our expectations be the same as those detailed in the patent? I think it merely will slow down other manufacturers from integrating multi-touch. I'm not too worried, though. Personally, I'd actually much rather have a trackpad, which I can use purely by feel. Being able to leave my right hand (pretending to program an ION here) on the primary keys I use to select fixtures actuate functions, while having my left hand actuate fixture attributes such as shutters, beam size, zoom, gobo, gobo mark or position through a multi-touch touch pad, would allow me to view the effect of the my handiwork without having to look down and up to make sure I am not actuating something I do not desire to and to more quickly switch between functions without having to look down and find the location of the function on the screen.
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