Bizarre Patents
A forehead support apparatus for resting a standing users forehead against a wall above a bathroom commode or urinal or beneath a showerhead.
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 |
| 7587739 | Open cable set-top box diagnosing system and method thereof An open cable set-top box diagnosing system in which a point of deployment (POD), separated from a main circuit unit, having a newly defined interface is used to check an operation state of an open cable set-top box, transmits the checked state to a predetermined se... | 09/08/2009 |
| 6111987 | Picture data compression coding device and method thereof A device for coding picture data by compression, and a method thereof. By preprocessing, the device calculates a picture activity of one frame of picture data. A quantizing table circuit selects a particular quantizing step matching the picture activity a... | 08/29/2000 |
| 6041141 | Character recognition machine utilizing language processing There is disclosed a character recognition machine adapted to recognize Japanese characters such as kanjis and kanas. The machine comprises a character string storage portion, a character extraction portion, a character recognition portion, and a language... | 03/21/2000 |
| 5862262 | Method of encoding a digital image using adaptive partitioning in an iterated transformation system A method of encoding a digital image using adaptive partitioning in an iterated transformation image compression system is provided. A set of ranges R is initialized to include at least two uncovered ranges. A set of domains D is initialized to include on... | 01/19/1999 |
| 5857031 | Method and apparatus for monitoring and inspecting strip edge A method of monitoring and inspecting an edge of strip metal includes providing at least one image producer having a field of view that substantially frames the edge, using the at least one image producer to form a first series of images of the edge after... | 01/05/1999 |
| 5852681 | Method and apparatus for eliminating artifacts in data processing and compression systems A method and apparatus to eliminate artifacts in data processing and compression systems.... | 12/22/1998 |
| 5832117 | Nonlinear resistive network for isolating outliers in sensor images A nonlinear resistive network, which includes switches in the data paths, is provided for identifying, isolating, and/or rejecting outliers in a sensor image. During normal operation, images are received with all the switches in a closed (conducting) stat... | 11/03/1998 |
| 5832103 | Automated method and system for improved computerized detection and classification of massess in mammograms A method and system for the automated detection and classification of masses in mammograms. These method and system include the performance of iterative, multi-level gray level thresholding, followed by a lesion extraction and feature extraction technique... | 11/03/1998 |
| 5832127 | Apparatus and fast method for convex-polygon bounding of closed contours An apparatus and computer-implemented polygon bounding method generate, in a first step, a binary array representation of a closed contour input object relative to a reference coordinate system. Subsequently, in a single pass through the binary array, a b... | 11/03/1998 |
| 5828777 | Image processing method and apparatus for preventing coping of specified documents An image processing apparatus for performing accurate discrimination between specific originals and ordinary originals. CCD 101 inputs RGB signals, and color-space matching judgment circuit 106 and pattern matching judgment circuit 113 judge the similarit... | 10/27/1998 |
| 5825912 | Electron beam tester An Electron Beam Tester which corrects deformation of a secondary electron image produced from scanning a sample with an electron beam. The secondary electron image is stored in a storage unit. Luminance data of the stored image is accumulated to obtain a... | 10/20/1998 |
| 5822458 | Precomputing and encoding compressed image enhancement instructions Traditional techniques such as filtering and edge enhancement have been applied to restoring images that have been distorted due to lossy image compression. However, these techniques have ignored a unique feature that can be exploited when working with di... | 10/13/1998 |
| 5809163 | Method of characterizing texture heterogeneities of geological formations traversed by a borehole A method of characterizing texture heterogeneities in a geological formation traversed by a borehole. The method records an image of the borehole wall such as that provided by Schlumberger's Formation Microscanner (FMS) apparatus, representative of variat... | 09/15/1998 |
| 5796863 | Method for training an adaptive statistical classifier to balance unigram prior factors A statistical classifier is trained in a manner to remove biasing due to unequal frequencies of unigram priors. The relative frequencies of all classes in a training set of sample patterns is determined. Training patterns are then selected from the set an... | 08/18/1998 |
| 5790714 | System and method for scaling video Scaling of video is performed using area weighted averaging of input pixels to calculate coefficients to multiply with luminescence and crominence of input pixels. Such coefficients are produced for both the vertical and horizontal scaling directions of t... | 08/04/1998 |
| 5784483 | Image processing apparatus An image processing apparatus performs a judging function of judging similarity between an image represented by input image data and a specific image; tests the judging function; and sets one of a first mode for referring an ordinary judging operation and... | 07/21/1998 |
| 5768426 | Graphics processing system employing embedded code signals An identification code signal is impressed on a carrier to be identified (such as an electronic data signal or a physical medium) in a manner that permits the identification signal later to be discerned and the carrier thereby identified. The method and a... | 06/16/1998 |
| 5768435 | Method and system for transferring a bit-mapped image using vertical and horizontal rules Methods of recognizing rules, solid lines or rectangles, in a bit-mapped image and of using those rules to enable a suitable printer or other suitable device to receive the bit-mapped image quickly. In a preferred embodiment, the methods include the steps... | 06/16/1998 |
| 5764790 | Method of storing and retrieving images of people, for example, in photographic archives and for the construction of identikit images In a method of storing and retrieving images of people, for example, in photographic archives and for the construction of identikit images, each characteristic (or feature) of the images to be stored is associated with a region the size of which correspon... | 06/09/1998 |
| 5764819 | Methods for classifying plants for evaluation and breeding programs by use of remote sensing and image analysis technology Methods for classifying plants by remote sensing and image analysis technology are presented. These methods are useful for evaluating plants and for selecting plants for a plant breeding program which has as its goal to selectively alter phenotype. The me... | 06/09/1998 |
| 5761337 | Method and apparatus for inspection of the appearance of bumps A semiconductor chip with bumps to be inspected is placed directly below a CCD, which captures an image of the bumps under dark field illumination. A reference window is set around each bump in the image. The reference window is enlarged or reduced or div... | 06/02/1998 |
| 5761342 | Image processing apparatus and method A color image, including both a binary color image and a multivalue color image, can be encoded without any image degradation, and an image can be immediately checked at the time of encoding. In a color image encoding apparatus for encoding a multivalue color ... | 06/02/1998 |
| 5757962 | Character recognition A method and apparatus for recognizing a script written character wherein the character is entered using character entering means and digitised by appropriate means. The digitised character is then stored in, for example, a memory. Codes representing topo... | 05/26/1998 |
| 5754693 | Method of optical recognition and classification of patterns The present invention is directed to a method for recognizing and classifying one or more unknown patterns, such as letters or numerals, by comparing these unknown patterns to a set of reference patterns. The unknown patterns, as well as the reference pat... | 05/19/1998 |
| 5754692 | Picture coincidence detecting apparatus and method Lower accuracy picture coincidence detecting means gives positional relationship between picture data of higher resolution picture and lower resolution picture as corresponding pixel position predicted with marker position as reference, i.e., initial posi... | 05/19/1998 |
| 5754676 | Image classification apparatus An image classification apparatus includes an image input device for inputting image data. A filing device stores the input image data and performs a read, retrieval, or edit operation on the data in accordance with a predetermined instruction. A normaliz... | 05/19/1998 |
| 5754712 | Image processing apparatus An image processing apparatus includes an image input unit for inputting image information, a trimming unit for trimming an area for classifying and summarizing the image information input by the image input unit, a recognition unit for recognizing inform... | 05/19/1998 |
| 5751844 | Method and apparatus for image acquisition with adaptive compensation for image exposure variation In an image acquisition system, which produces at least one image, each of which is scorable with reference to at least one image quality criterion, a control system is provided for optimizing the image quality criterion. Typically, the image quality crit... | 05/12/1998 |
| 5751845 | Method for generating smooth color corrections in a color space, particularly a CIELAB color space Method for generating harmonic color corrections in a color image. The color image is deposited in an image store and is displayed on a monitor. Color samples of the colors that are to be subjected to a selective color correction are taken from the image ... | 05/12/1998 |
| 5748763 | Image steganography system featuring perceptually adaptive and globally scalable signal embedding An identification code signal is hidden in a carrier signal (such as an electronic data signal or a physical medium) in a manner that permits the identification signal later to be discerned. The carrier signal can thereby be identified, or some machine re... | 05/05/1998 |
| 5745599 | Character recognition method The present invention provides a handwritten character recognition method in which neighboring points are connected by straight lines and the segments in-between points are then interpolated using broken lines. Each broken line is equally divided into k s... | 04/28/1998 |
| 5734738 | Ultrasonic diagnosing apparatus An object to be examined is scanned with an ultrasonic wave and a tomographic image of the object is obtained on the basis of reflected ultrasonic waves. This image is stored in a frame memory. The types of the motion of the image, i.e., a still image, a ... | 03/31/1998 |
| 5732156 | Picture data compression coding device and method thereof A device for coding picture data by compression, and a method thereof are provided. By preprocessing, the device calculates a picture activity of one frame of picture data. A quantizing table circuit selects a particular quantizing step matching the pictu... | 03/24/1998 |
| 5729640 | Process of acquiring with an X=Y scannable array camera light emanted from a subject A portable scatterometer and/or an angular radiated light measurement instrument that uses a measurement head which includes a double tapered fiber optic bundle with a concave front face to simultaneously collect partial or full hemispherically scattered ... | 03/17/1998 |
| 5729633 | Picture data compression coding device and method thereof A device for coding picture data by compression, and a method thereof. By preprocessing, the device calculates a picture activity of one frame of picture data. A quantizing table circuit selects a particular quantizing step matching the picture activity a... | 03/17/1998 |
| 5729620 | Computer-aided diagnosis system and method X-ray images are displayed at both high-resolution and high illumination with annotation superimposed in registration therewith to point out suspected abnormalities identified through a process in which the x-ray images are digitized and the digitized inf... | 03/17/1998 |
| 5724439 | Inspecting apparatus of mounted component A mounting state of a component mounted on a printed circuit board with adhesive is inspected by an apparatus which includes an image pick-up unit for picking up in colors an image of the board after the component is mounted, a color extracting part for d... | 03/03/1998 |
| 5724449 | Stroke syntax input device A pointing device-driven interface apparatus and method for enabling a user to enter data (in the form of options) into a computer system. User data files are maintained which indicate the relative frequency with which the user has entered sequences of op... | 03/03/1998 |
| 5719949 | Process and apparatus for cross-correlating digital imagery The present invention involves a system and method for processing information from high resolution data from maps, aerial photographs and other spatial data with low resolution data from limitation in order to accurately identify changes in the studied ar... | 02/17/1998 |
| 5719969 | Data input apparatus and data processing apparatus A data input apparatus includes an image pickup with a zooming function, for converting an original image into an electrical signal, an area judger for judging at least a character area from the image taken by the image pickup and a character recognizer f... | 02/17/1998 |
