Bizarre Patents
A method of swing on a swing is disclosed, in which a user positioned on a standard swing suspended by two chains from a substantially horizontal tree branch induces side to side motion by pulling alternately on one chain and then the other.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8185658 | Supporting virtual private networks using a first network topology for forwarding and a subset of the first network topology or a smaller topology for signaling Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are supported in which customers may use popular internet gateway protocol (IGPs) without the need to convert such IGPs, running on customer devices to a single protocol, such as the border gateway protocol (BGP). Scaling problems, wh... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8184174 | Image processor and image processing program to correct a spatial frequency band of an image The digital camera (100) has an image processor that corrects an input image for a spatial frequency band. The edge enhancement block (106) computes an edge component for band correction. A signal interpolated at color interpolation block (107) ... | 05/22/2012 |
| 8180116 | Image pickup apparatus and system for specifying an individual Disclosed is an electronic imaging apparatus which has different drive modes of an image pickup device for image shooting between an image for detecting the face of a subject and an image for detecting a feature value for specifying an individual based on the detect... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8179848 | Video multicast using relay devices defined by a channel quality parameter hierarchy Improved distribution of video information in an infrastructure-based wireless network is provided. A wireless channel condition between the video server node and each of the plurality of receiver nodes is determined. Receiver nodes are assigned into one of a first ... | 05/15/2012 |
| 8176201 | Controlling the signaling of label-switched paths using a label distribution protocol employing messages which facilitate the use of external prefixes Label distribution protocol (LDP) signaled label-switched paths (LSPs) are supported without requiring information about remote autonomous systems (ASs) to be injected into the local interior gateway protocol (IGP). This may be done by (i) decoupling a forwarding eq... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8174590 | Image pickup apparatus and image pickup method The present invention is an image pickup apparatus provided with a pixel section in which pixels each including a photoelectric conversion section and a signal storage section that temporarily stores a signal charge of the photoelectric conversion section are two-di... | 05/08/2012 |
| 8171034 | Methods and apparatus for serving relevant advertisements The relevance of advertisements to a user's interests is improved. In one implementation, the content of a web page is analyzed to determine a list of one or more topics associated with that web page. An advertisement is considered to be relevant to that web page if... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8170602 | Information acquisition device, information providing device, and information providing system An information acquisition device for acquiring digital Information includes: a first transmission unit (14) having directivity and transmitting by wireless an information request signal to be transmitted in a direction of the directivity; an information addi... | 05/01/2012 |
| 8166544 | Network-based infection detection using host slowdown Host malware (or change) may be detected by (1) receiving baseline set of response time information for each of one or more transactions involving (A) the host and (B) at least one peer of the host, (2) determining or receiving a later set of response time informati... | 04/24/2012 |
| 8160435 | Flash unit, camera, and camera flash system A flash unit of the present invention is capable of being used as a supplementary light source for taking photographs, and comprises a light emitting section capable of changing an illumination area of a flash, an imaging section capable of imaging a picture, includ... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8159529 | Image outputting apparatus and program An operation unit switches the operating mode between a 3D display output mode in which the images of the 3D image file are displayed as a stereoscopic images and a 2D display output mode in which one of the images of the 3D image file is displayed as an ordinary pl... | 04/17/2012 |
| 8145527 | Governing the serving of advertisements based on a cost target Helping advertisers to control marketing expenditures by governing the delivery of an advertisement over a time period. Such governing may be accomplished by (a) determining an expected cost associated with delivering the advertisement, ungoverned, over the time per... | 03/27/2012 |
| 8140965 | Identifying related information given content and/or presenting related information in association with content-related advertisements The usefulness of content (target content), such as advertisements, may be increased by determining additional content and providing such additional content in association with the content. The target content may be text, a Web page, a URL, a search query, etc. The ... | 03/20/2012 |
| 8135619 | Increasing a number of relevant advertisements using a relaxed match The number of ads potentially relevant to search query information may be increased by relaxing the notion of search query keyword matching. This may be done, for example, by expanding a set of ad request keywords to include both query keywords (or derivatives of a ... | 03/13/2012 |
| 8125526 | Camera for selecting an image from a plurality of images based on a face portion and contour of a subject in the image There is disclosed a camera which detects a face portion of a subject from a shot image to determine whether a shot image is a good shot candidate image from the features of the face portion and a face portion-related image portion. As examples, the features include... | 02/28/2012 |
| 8115852 | Contrast control for use in image display apparatus and image pickup apparatus An image display apparatus includes a display which displays an image based on an image signal. An ambient light measuring unit measures the intensity of ambient light around the display. A brightness distribution measuring unit measures a brightness distribution in... | 02/14/2012 |
| 8107775 | Image processing apparatus and method, and electronic camera An image processing apparatus obtains color image data by performing an interpolation processing for an image signal output from a color image pickup element having color filters arranged like a mosaic, by using a filter. The apparatus includes an interpolation proc... | 01/31/2012 |
| 8103112 | Decoding method, decoding apparatus, storage medium in which decoding program is stored, and electronic camera In a decoding method for decoding coded light ray information, coded first image information and coded second image information different from the first image information are decoded. The first image information and the second image information are obtained in takin... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8103111 | Coding method, electronic camera, recording medium storing coded program, and decoding method In a method of coding light ray information including information about a position on a predetermined surface and information about an incident angle to the surface when a ray of light from a subject enters the surface, the light ray information is divided into two ... | 01/24/2012 |
| 8094634 | Sender and/or helper node modifications to enable security features in cooperative wireless communications Wireless protocols that employ a helper node are adapted so that they may take advantage of authentication security (and perhaps encryption security). Thus, such protocols may be used with security protocols such as 802.11i protocol (or the like) for example. ... | 01/10/2012 |
| 8090706 | Rendering advertisements with documents having one or more topics using user topic interest information Ambiguities with respect to a user topic interest may be resolved so that useful topic-relevant ads can be presented. Such ambiguities may be resolved by monitoring user behavior, determining a user topic interest (e.g., from a plurality of different candidate topic... | 01/03/2012 |
| 8086630 | Using location-specific price and/or performance information in an ad system The usefulness, and consequently the performance, of advertisements are improved by allowing businesses to better target their ads to a responsive audience. Location information is determined (or simply accepted) and used. For example, location information may be us... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8086559 | Serving content-relevant advertisements with client-side device support A client-side application (such as a browser, a browser plug-in, a browser toolbar plug-in, etc. on an end user's computer) is used to support the serving of content-relevant ads to the client device. The client-side application may provide such support by sending d... | 12/27/2011 |
| 8082174 | Arbitrating the sale of ad spots to increase offer competition Any content provider, such as a Website that generates pageviews, with available ad spots can sell such ad spots with fine granularity such as on a per pageview basis, or even on a per ad spot basis. One or more ad spots can be sold for the highest compensation for ... | 12/20/2011 |
| 8081232 | Correcting defective pixels of an image pickup element in an image pickup apparatus An image pickup apparatus includes: an image pickup element having a plurality of pixels; a drive unit moving the image pickup element; a defective position storage unit storing position data on the image pickup element about a defective pixel contained in the plura... | 12/20/2011 |
| 8078494 | Methods and apparatus for ordering advertisements based on performance information and price information An ordering of advertisements requested by an ad consumer is based on scores generated for the ads. In each case, a score may be a function of at least one performance parameter associated with the ad and/or a price parameter associated with the ad. The ad consumer ... | 12/13/2011 |
| 8068686 | Image recording apparatus, image recording method, image processing apparatus, image processing method and image processing system An image recording apparatus includes an imaging section which images a subject to obtain imaging data. An image quality information acquiring section acquires a plurality of sets of information concerning image quality. An image quality information converting secti... | 11/29/2011 |
| 8055791 | Protecting connection traffic using filters A connection between network nodes in a communication network is backed up. A failover label-switched path (LSP) is created starting at a first network node of a connection and ending 5 at the second node of the connection, while bypassing the protected conne... | 11/08/2011 |
| 8055030 | Image selection support system for supporting selection of well-photographed image from plural images A feature area extracting section extracts an area having a unique feature in an image input to an image selection support apparatus. A specific area feature collating and determining section determines whether or not the area having a feature and extracted by the f... | 11/08/2011 |
| 8049807 | Digital camera and dust reduction apparatus for digital camera Arranged are an optical element, a piezoelectric element arranged on the optical element, and an oscillation circuit for causing the piezoelectric element to vibrate so as to generate vibrational waves, wherein the volume of the piezoelectric element is determined b... | 11/01/2011 |
| 8041601 | System and method for automatically targeting web-based advertisements A system and method for automatically targeting Web-based advertisements is described. Advertisements are identified relative to a query, wherein identified advertisements describe characteristics relative to at least one of a product and a service. The advertisemen... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8041203 | Camera, camera controlling method, and recording medium storing camera controlling program A camera includes a mode setting unit which sets an operation mode of the camera to a normal mode or an illumination apparatus control mode. A display unit selectively displays an image and information. A setting unit sets and changes operating conditions of an illu... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8040420 | Camera The camera according to this invention comprises an L-shaped frame that is capable of changing the size or aspect ratio of the viewfinder by relative movement, a back-face image-pickup device for photographing an image of the eye of the photographer, and a photograp... | 10/18/2011 |
| 8035726 | Digital camera and focus control method A focus evaluation value representing a focusing state of a taking lens is repeatedly calculated on the basis of an image signal output from an imaging section of a digital camera, a change in the focus evaluation value generated by the movement of the taking lens i... | 10/11/2011 |
| 8035697 | Electronic imaging apparatus and method An electronic imaging apparatus includes a color imaging device having several drive modes including at least first and second drive modes. A simultaneous shooting unit simultaneously or continuously executes an operation of acquiring a first image data by driving t... | 10/11/2011 |
| 8026972 | Picture-taking lens unit A camera according to the present invention includes a picture-taking lens unit including a picture-taking optical system having a bending optical system which optically bends incident light and an optical finder unit including a finder optical system having a bendi... | 09/27/2011 |
| 8023816 | Camera and control method thereof A camera can display, record and play image data after converting a captured image into the digital data. The camera comprises a guidance display setting means for causing a hierarchical guidance display to be made in order to set at least a control of a shooting op... | 09/20/2011 |
| 8019592 | Information terminal device and method for purchasing and adding additional program functions An information terminal device and method for upgrading a program simply and flexibly and an upgraded program is described. In many cases, a program running on a computer has additional functions prepared separately so that they can be added to that program as neces... | 09/13/2011 |
| 8015311 | Reducing or minimizing delays in peer-to-peer communications such as peer-to-peer video streaming A new P2P streaming method and apparatus disseminates video chunks to all peers with the minimum (or at least reduced) delay. After obtaining a new video chunk, a peer keeps transmitting (uploading) that video chunk to other peers until all peers receive it. The app... | 09/06/2011 |
| 8013892 | Photographing apparatus, control method for lens barrel of photographing appartus, printer, control method for printer, and printing system In this photographing apparatus, when it is recognized that communication with an external device is possible, the operating mode is set to the communication mode, in which communication can be carried out with the external device. Once there is communication connec... | 09/06/2011 |
