The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently awarded a photography patent to Amazon that would make professional photographers either cringe or chuckle, but we heard some are furious: shooting photos of people and things against a smooth white background, which the e-commerce giant now dubbed as Studio Arrangement.
The Studio Arrangement, legally patented by Amazon, is actually among the most, if not the most, common or ordinary techniques in studio photography that is in use by photographers around the world.
Apparently, Amazon filed the photography patent in November 9, 2011 and got its patent only on March 18 this year. The company describes in its Abstract what and how a Studio Arrangement is.
"One embodiment of the disclosure includes a front light source aimed at a background, an image capture position located between the background and the front light source, an elevated platform positioned between the image capture position and the background, and at least one rear light source positioned between the elevated platform and the background," says the USPTO patent document.
The document puts into technical details the basis of some angles, settings, distances and dimensions; the use of a table or elevated platform; the use of some lights at different angles; and even the workflow process. Research, however, says that the patented photography technique of Amazon has been a basic skill and technique for studio photographers applying off-camera flashes and lighting.
The DIY Photography blog even notes two things on this. First, that there's "plenty of prior art on this." Second, there's "absolutely no way to enforce it." Further research also says the conditions in the patent document in fact indicate there's no way to either violate the patent or even know if the patent was ever violated in the first place.
Which brings up the question, why is Amazon even patenting such a common technique then?
Critics suggest that Amazon is perhaps showing how ridiculous the patent system in the US has become, or it is simply offering to the general public its tried and tested way of taking photos of USB extenders. Others say it could be Amazon's way of legally safeguarding that no other person's photos look a hundred percent identical to the photos of the company, regardless of how close these photos can actually look like. Also, it was said that this could be merely one of the many other patents the huge e-commerce company continually files but that happened to switch the plug.
Regardless, others say if only the USPTO could have done a little more investigating or asking around, it would get the idea that the Studio Arrangement patent of Amazon is a photography technique that has become so mundane all these years and also sillier than the peanut butter crustless sandwich patent.
