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Yes, Virginia, you can patent just anything.

Posted by Steve Eddy on November 5, 2001 at 20:23:50

In a recent thread regarding the Shakti Stone and Shakti Onlines, patents came up as a side issue. It was pointed out that simply because something is patented doesn't mean the device actually does what it is claimed to do. This led to further discussion as to what the patent office requires when issuing a patent and whether or not one's claims need to be valid in order to receive a patent. As someone in that thread said, "you can't patent just anything."

Instead of going down the "Tastes great!/Less filling!" path I thought it might be fun to explore this issue using a realworld example. In other words, a patent that has been granted.

I refer to patent number 5,487,057. This patent was granted to John Bedini and covers his device known as the "Bedini Clarifier." Mr. Bedini starts with a couple of grains of truth, grossly misapplies them and around that weaves a tapestry of gibberish and doubletalk that would make Professor Irwin Corey weep.

Instead of addressing every one of the issues which could be raised with this patent, I'd like to stick to one which more people here would have a chance of understanding and even able to verify for themselves without requiring any test gear to speak of. Specifically, EXAMPLE IV, the first portion of which reads:

EXAMPLE IV

A Photo-CD was analyzed both "before" and "after" passing the CD through the modulated eletromagnetic field of the device to determine specific changes in the retrievable data from the CD. The method and steps used to derive and quantify the effect that clarifying had on the conductor was determined using the following method and steps:

1. A demonstration Photo-CD sampler, produced by Kodak, was down loaded to the hard drive of an Apple Centris 650, 25 HRZ, 6800040 motherboard and a new file created and properly designated as "before". The photo-CD had not been clarified by the device. Images were transferred to a commercial graphics software program, PhotoShop, developed by Adobe Software.

2. The Photo-CD was removed from the ROM and treated with the present device by spinning the CD on each side for 15 seconds. The CD was then down loaded to the hard drive and a second new file created and properly designated as "after". The images created were transferred to the PhotoShop graphics software program with file separation maintained at all times.

3. Print number 3 of the Photo-CD list, contained in the "before" or unclarifyied, was brought to the screen and a text translator was used to convert the picture to post script computer language. Picture number 3 represented a photo image that measured 21/2.times.13/4 inches, using 132 LPI, 72 DPI and utilized approximately 250K of memory. Following the text translation process to convert the small image to post script, it was then saved to a new file. Following the conversion, there were 360 pages of post script computer language created to describe the image number 3.

4. The identical process as described above was used to create a post script file for the image following use of the device on the photo-CD. The "after" or clarifying effect resulted in 348 pages of post script computer language.

5. The first 16 pages of post script language was specific to language to program the printer. The balance of the pages in both cases was post script language to describe the specific image that was converted. The first 4 pages of both files were then converted into text files using Wordperfect 6.0. The process of converting the post script files to text files was for the specific purpose of utilizing a specialized software program that could compare the text language of both files. The process of converting the first 4 pages of both post script files to text files took 25 minutes and resulted in the generation of 101 pages of new text language. The ratio of pages of text converted from post script is approximately 1 to 25. If the entire post script files (354 pages average) were converted to text file using the same ratio, it would require approximately 8,850 pages of text file to fully describe a single 21/2.times.13/4 inch colored image.

6. The software used to simultaneously compare the text in the two files, DocuComp II, version 1.05, is a product of Advance software, Inc.

7. The first 4 pages produced a total of 101 pages of text file. When placed into the DocuComp file, it resulted in the following summary of information changes: The 4 pages represent slightly more than 1% of the total data available from each image. If the entire 708 pages were converted and analyzed, it would take considerable memory capacity and about 37 hours (4 pages of each file takes 25 minutes) of computer running time to analyze 708 pages of post script computer language.

8. Four pages from each file generated a total of 56 material changes, on the average, resulting in over 5,000 changes for the entire image when "before" clarifying was compared to "after" clarifying.

9. The "before" unclarified file, resulted in 53,336 bytes of information The "after" clarified file version, generated 50,521 bytes of information. The comparison represents a difference in information retrieved equal to 5.7% less for the clarified file.

Ok. So first thing they do is copy an "unclarified" PhotoCD to a hard drive. Then they remove the PhotoCD and "clarify" it and copy it to some other location on the hard drive. Then they pick print number 3 to make comparisons.

What follows is the most bizarre, convoluted mess one could imagine. Do they compare the file sizes between the "unclarified" and "clarified" copies? No. Do they do a binary comparison of the two? No. That wouldn't have given the result that was being sought.

The two files would have turned out to be identical in every respect. Otherwise their CDROM drive or their hard drive would have had to be broken.

Instead what they do is fabricate differences. They first pull the two PhotoCD images into PhotoShop and convert them to PostScript files. Then they count the number of "pages" of the resulting PostScript files. The "unclarified" PostScript file turns out to be 360 pages and the "clarified" PostScript file turns out to be 348 pages. A difference of 12 pages.

They say that the first 16 pages of the PostScript files were comprised of information inteneded to set up the printer, rather than actual image data. They make no mention of stripping out these irrelevant first 16 pages but go on to say that they used the first 4 pages to convert to text files via Wordperfect so they can use yet another program (DocuComp) to compare the two text files.

Then they say that the DocuComp program turned up 56 differences between four pages of the two files and use that as "proof" of the even more bizarre claims to follow.

One might ask why anyone would go through such a convoluted mess when all that need be done is to simply compare the two PhotoCD files copied to the hard drive. Here's why:

When you convert to a PostScript file out of PhotoShop, even of the exact same image, the two files are not identical. The file sizes are identical (which is why they ignored file sizes and used ambiguous text "pages" instead) but the data within the two files are not laid out exactly the same.

I pulled a jpg image into PhotoShop and saved it out twice as a PostScript file. I used the same file name and put them in two different directories on the hard drive. Both files had an identical file size of 1,468,923 bytes. I pulled each of them into Microsoft Word Viewer and each file contained 1,211,218 characters. Yet one file came up with 425 pages and the other with 426 pages.

Then I ran DOS's file compare utility (fc.exe) and did a binary comparison between the two files. I came up with about 20,000 differences.

And this is how you produce differences out of thin air.

And speaking of out of thin air, here are the claims that this fabricated bit of nonsense was intended to substantiate:

Clarifying the Photo-CD with the device realigns the data into a tighter format by reducing superfluous data.

Here Bedini is claiming that his "clarifier" is physically altering the PhotoCD itself and subsequently altering the data stored on it. Complete and utter BS. Kodak's PhotoCD complies with the CD-ROM/XA Mode 2, Form 1 standard. If you changed any of the data on the disk, it would either be corrected by the error correction system or if it were uncorrectable, give you a read error and stop sending data.

Each Pixel has a "halo" or influence zone. Exposing the pixel to a modulated EM field reduces the halo by suppressing electron activity or relaxation noise thus causing the pixel to be sharper with improved clarity.

Here Bedini is claiming that the data is stored on the disk literally as pixels, as if it were some analog medium like laserdisk. Again, sheer and utter BS. The data is stored on the disk digitally, and will either be copied from the disk wholly intact or not at all.

The photo-CD manufacturing process can produce residual color around each individual pixel referred to as pixel residual or bleeding.

More sheer and utter BS.

Ok, I keep getting "HTML tag not allowed" errors when I preview this so I'll use asterisks from here on rather than italics.

***When a pixel, represented by post script and text script, is sharper, it does not require as much information to accurately describe or define it.***

Still more sheer and utter BS. PostScript and text has absolutely nothing to do with it. The data on a PhotoCD is not stored as PostScript or text.

***When a pixel halo or influence zone is reduced, it requires less information to describe the data.***

Yet still more sheer and utter BS.

***In Example IV, 5.7% less information was required following clarifying by the device, at the same time improving the image to describe the same segment of the picture.***

Yes, you can get 5.7% less information when you fabricate your "proof."

***The analysis process of converting each image to post script and then to text is accurate.***

HAHAHAHAHA! Er, yeah. What other fairy tales you got up your sleeve?

***Changes created by treating a photo-CD with the present device can be demonstrated by a computer comparison of the information generated from both images.***

Information generated? Fabricated is more like it.

Bottom line: Bedini's claims here have been plucked out of thin air and don't even pass the giggle test. Yet he got his patent.

So yes, you can indeed patent just anything.

se

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