[Insight-developers] Re: ICP (Iterative Closest Point) Patent

[Stephen R. Aylward]

Time for the itkPatented directory...

A full solution would be:

	1) Create
		Insight/Code/Patented
		Insight/Testing/Code/Patented
		Insight/Examples/Patented

	2) Since people can only patent algorithms, it seems like we
		would not need directories below patented.

	3) InsightApplications would not use patented methods.

However, this leaves us with Lydia's original question...do we want to 
maintain someone else's patented code???

So, option 2.  A partial solution:

	1) Create
		Insight/Patented

This code might become out-of-date.   The user would have to manually 
include the appropriate directories, etc - we could provide a sample 
CMakeLists.txt file that should how to include Insight/Patented stuff in 
a compilation...

I would hate to start deleting code from ITK.

Also, isn't Jay Udupa's group contributing Chris Taylor's patented 
method.   There will probably be others too...

Stephen


Luis Ibanez wrote:

> 
> Hi Raghu,
> 
> Thanks for searching on the patent information
> about the ICP algorithm.
> 
> I'm afraid that serious advice on this matter could
> only be provided by an intellectual property attorney.
> 
> After reading the patent claim, it seems to me that even
> though ICP is not the central aspect of the claim, the
> method is clearly depicted in it.
> 
> The worrisome part is that ICP is very widely used in
> the medical field, in particular in image guided surgery.
> If General Motors Corp. is actually enforcing the patent,
> there would be many medical applications out there that
> will be touched.
> 
> The natural consequence is that people will move to use
> a variant of the method, making it different enough for
> not being covered by the patent claim. The question of
> course is "how different" will be "different enough", and
> that's the type of questions that only an Intellectual
> Property Attorney could answer.
> 
> 
> 
>   Regards,
> 
> 
> 
>     Luis
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------
> Raghu Venkatram wrote:
> 
>> Hi Luis,
>>
> ....
> 
>> Also luis, I did a patent search on the Iterative Closest Point
>> algorithm, as I remember Paul Besl, the primary author, mentioning in
>> one of his talks that he ahd a patent.
>>
>> http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=besl.INZZ.&OS=IN/besl&RS=IN/besl 
>>
>>
>> Our application just like ITK is open source, please let me know if we
>> would be violating
>> any patents by using ICP for image registration.
>> Thanks in advance.
>> Raghu
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
===========================================================
Dr. Stephen R. Aylward
Associate Professor of Radiology
Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science and Surgery
http://caddlab.rad.unc.edu
aylward at unc.edu
(919) 966-9695