Did You Know...
...that Robert Adler has the dubious distinction of being the Father of the Couch Potato? Back in 1955 Adler was employed by what was then Zenith Radio Corp., where he was charged to invent something that would allow viewers to turn down the TV volume without leaving their chairs. After a series of flops (such as a wired contraption that people tripped over), Adler hit on the idea of using sound waves. Thus the Remote Control was born...
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7948662 | Image processing apparatus and method for performing shade correction on generated image using a shading coefficient Generation of an electronic document which leaves density difference information between the background of a document and a correcting liquid applied surface is in demand. Hence, upon reading a document image and converting it into an electronic document, the backgr... | 05/24/2011 |
| 7701618 | Automatic image enhancement using computed predictors A method and apparatus for enhancing electronic images allows for improved characteristics between light areas and dark areas, and is particularly effective for backlit images. A transition between light and dark image portions is detected. A determination is made f... | 04/20/2010 |
| 7440583 | Watermark information detection method There is provided a watermark information detecting method capable of detecting confidential information accurately from a document including confidential information. In this method, a filtering process is performed on the whole surface of an input image (S310 | 10/21/2008 |
| 7408667 | Systems and methods for pull printing where rendering is initiated at the printer A method for pull printing a document wherein the rendering is initiated at a printer is disclosed. A document on a computing device is located from a printing device. A message is sent to the computing device to print the document with at least one print option. Th... | 08/05/2008 |
| 7400763 | Smart erasure brush Methods and apparatus, including computer program products, for erasing in a digital image. A method includes identifying a plurality of tip regions on the image, establishing an erasure color, and completely erasing pixels in the tip region that have a color matchi... | 07/15/2008 |
| 7400766 | Image edge extraction via fuzzy reasoning A computer-based technique for detecting edges in gray level digital images employs fuzzy reasoning to analyze whether each pixel in an image is likely on an edge. The image is analyzed on a pixel-by-pixel basis by analyzing gradient levels of pixels in a square win... | 07/15/2008 |
| 7391540 | Sheet-fed scanner capable of switching backgrounds In a sheet-fed scanner capable of switching backgrounds, a scanning module scans a document, which is transported by a sheet-feeding mechanism across a scan region, and a stationary background component, which has a plurality of sections having different reflectivit... | 06/24/2008 |
| 7362382 | Automatic gain control circuitry To provide an automatic gain control circuitry which effectively works for a video signal of which pedestal level in an effective video period is different from the pedestal level in the vertical blanking period. The automatic gain control circuitry comprises a firs... | 04/22/2008 |
| 7359553 | Image identification system Methods and procedures for improving the performance and reliability of image analysis within an image identification system include a series of image qualification functions designed to quickly process a fraction of available image data and to provide feedback to a... | 04/15/2008 |
| 7342609 | Exposure adjustment in an imaging apparatus An imaging apparatus for performing exposure adjustment based on the luminance of screen images through photoelectric conversion includes a structure for providing a signal to be applied to a screen for viewing images, a structure defining a region satisfying a pred... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7340106 | Image processing apparatus and method, and image-capturing apparatus The present invention allows the amount of movement indicating the movement of an object within an exposure period to be obtained. An estimated-mixture-ratio processor 401 calculates an estimated mixture ratio for each pixel and an estimated motion vector by ... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7336399 | Document image scanning device that provides image of proper appearance while preserving image density A device for scanning a document includes a photoelectric conversion unit which scans a document, and supplies image data of the scanned document, a background detecting unit which detects a background level of the image data, an image processing unit which applies ... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7317832 | Method of photo/text separation using path frequency of pixel intensities A method of photo/text separation using path frequency of pixel intensities is disclosed. It divides an original image into n*n pixel blocks and records the path conditions satisfied by the intensities of consecutive two pixels. From the statistical analysis of the ... | 01/08/2008 |
| 7312902 | Background data recording and use with document processing Systems, methods and program products for recording a document's background data during front-end generation of the document, and inserting a background data identifier on the document. In addition, the invention provides for use of the background data for document ... | 12/25/2007 |
| 7292375 | Method and apparatus for color image processing, and a computer product A show-through is removed as follows. Resolution of the color image is reduced and the color coordinate system is transferred to a one having a high independence. Then, edge intensity is calculated, edge-detection is performed. Then, color threshold processing is pe... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7292365 | Methods and systems for determining distribution mean level without histogram measurement Techniques for estimating an average background value and an average foreground value of an image data formed by a plurality of pixels by selecting a first plurality of pixels forming a first calculation window from the plurality of pixels, determining at least firs... | 11/06/2007 |
| 7277596 | Apparatus configured to eliminate image data show-through An image input apparatus includes a show-through elimination part performing show-through elimination on image data read from a front face of an original and image data read from a back face of the original. An image compression part compresses and converts, into co... | 10/02/2007 |
| 7277579 | Smart scan A method for determining a border of an image includes (a) receiving a composite image including a background image and a foreground image, (b) following one geometric feature (e.g., a line) of the background image, and (c) detecting two or more breakpoints in the f... | 10/02/2007 |
| 7263242 | Method for detecting repetitive surfaces in an optical mouse A repetitive surface detector includes an image capture device capturing an image. An autocorrelator receives the image and generates a signal indicative of a repetitive background of the image. A controller determines a maximum and minimum value in the auto-correla... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7263240 | Method, system, and software for improving signal quality using pyramidal decomposition A method, system, and software are disclosed for improving the quality of a signal. A base signal is recursively decomposed for a desired number of pyramid levels. The decomposed signal from the lowest level is modified to generate a preprocessed signal. The preproc... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7262884 | Image processing apparatus and image processing method A white background determination section performs a white background determination on the basis of a white threshold calculated by a white threshold calculation section and an area size selected by an area size determination section. A character discrimination secti... | 08/28/2007 |
| 7256910 | Color separation method and printed product of the method A method is described for overcoming the adverse visual effect of misregistered ink planes in multiple ink color prints. Color separations are initially made in a normal fashion. The separation carrying the greatest object detail is then chosen as a luminance or ach... | 08/14/2007 |
| 7251358 | Color measurement profile with embedded characterization A data structure by which a color management system can model color behavior of a color device. More particularly, the data structure includes a measurement component including a collection of measurements, where each measurement represents at least one control sign... | 07/31/2007 |
| 7245740 | Electronic watermark embedding device, electronic watermark detection device, electronic watermark embedding method, and electronic watermark detection method To provide an electronic watermark embedding device for improving accuracy when classified information is being detected. The watermark image forming section 1006 creates a watermark image based on classified information 1004 with reference to the docu... | 07/17/2007 |
| 7233414 | Image recording apparatus and method, image reproducing apparatus and method, and recording medium on which image processing program is recorded The present invention is intended to record image data having a wide dynamic range is a file together with image data having a narrow dynamic range. First, an image recording apparatus separately gradation-converts image data to be recorded into primary data having ... | 06/19/2007 |
| 7227988 | Prioritized PDL segmentation producing two bit selector A method of generating a binary Sel plane for image compression is disclosed. The method first generates a 2 bit gray selector (GraySel). This 2 bit selector is then processed in a second stage to produce a binary Sel decision which minimizes the compression noise e... | 06/05/2007 |
| 7215827 | Object detection method using an image-pickup device with easy detection masking region setting and object detection apparatus using the method In object detection method and apparatus, a detection image related to a binary image obtained by subtracting a background image from an input image delivered from an image-pickup device is displayed on the display screen of a display unit, responsive to an operatio... | 05/08/2007 |
| 7212320 | Image reading device An image reading device of the present invention includes a glass platen mounted on a support member. A rotary cam, a home position sensor and so forth allow the support member to move in reciprocation in a subscanning direction. When a document is conveyed along th... | 05/01/2007 |
| 7209572 | Digital watermark embedding apparatus, digital watermark extraction apparatus, and methods thereof A document image undergoes document analysis to obtain circumscribing rectangles of characters (S601), and two distances between non-neighboring circumscribing rectangles from the head of the document are respectively calculated as d1 and d2 (S | 04/24/2007 |
| 7206102 | Image reading apparatus with partially shielded light-receiving elements An image reading apparatus includes a plurality of light-receiving elements, a lens array, and a light-shielding member. All of the light-receiving elements are arranged in a single line having an extremity. The light-shielding member covers one or more light-receiv... | 04/17/2007 |
| 7202974 | Efficient under color removal A method of performing color space conversion and under color removal. Pixelated data is first resampled (102) to an efficient word size—typically 8-bits wide. The RGB color format data words are then subtracted from a maximum intensity to yield CMY color f... | 04/10/2007 |
| 7194630 | Information processing apparatus, information processing system, information processing method, storage medium and program A provider side apparatus provides original digital data together with a digital signature generated by the provider side apparatus, the digital signature detecting whether the original digital data was falsified or detecting a change level given to the original dig... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7190493 | Image reading apparatus and image reading method A white reference image is inputted to an image sensor so as to output groups of analog data. The groups of analog data are converted by a processing unit into those groups of digital data the number of which is smaller than that of photosensor elements of the image... | 03/13/2007 |
| 7190807 | Digital watermark extracting method, apparatus, program and storage medium The invention is to precisely extract a digital watermark from image data which are subjected to embedding of the digital watermark in a state of a binary image and are then converted into a multi-value image (gray scale image). For attaining the foregoing ob... | 03/13/2007 |
| 7181080 | Image processing apparatus and method, and image pickup apparatus An object of the present invention is to make it possible to specify a background image area, a moving object image area, and an image area in which the mixture of the background image area and the moving object image area occurs. A mixture-ratio calculator 103 | 02/20/2007 |
| 7174049 | Image upscaling by joint optimization of low and mid-level image variables An image upscaling algorithm jointly optimizes estimating pixel color, classifying it into one of multiple regions, and estimating region boundaries subject to region continuity and edge-configuration constraints. The joint solution of constraints at multiple levels... | 02/06/2007 |
| 7167281 | Image processing apparatus and method for binarizing a multilevel image It is judged for each pixel in an inputted multilevel image whether the pixel is a background pixel, and the pixel is locally binarized if it is judged not to be a background pixel. Then, it is judged whether the pixel belongs to a background or a stroke, such as of... | 01/23/2007 |
| 7164511 | Distinguishing positive and negative films system and method A system and method for scanning a photographic film using a scanner automatedly identifies the film as either a positive or negative and controls the scanner settings to perform the scan accordingly. The method includes performing a pre-scan of the film, sampling a... | 01/16/2007 |
| 7161626 | Image reading apparatus A CCD photoelectrically converts image information obtained from optically reading an original image, line by line, and outputs an image signal. Several of the photoelectric sensors of a CCD of the CCD portion form an optical black portion. A black shading correctin... | 01/09/2007 |
| 7116800 | Image segmentation system and method The present invention relates in general to systems used to process images. In particular, the present invention is an image segmentation system and method used to isolate the segmented image of a target person, animal, or object from an ambient image which includes... | 10/03/2006 |
