Posts Tagged: "HP patents"

Hewlett-Packard has one of the stronger patent portfolios among U.S. technology developers, and the past few weeks have seen many interesting additions to that portfolio. One patent protects a method of brokering fair prices between printing entities and document acquisition services, which often provide printing services to mobile device users. Another protects a scanning technology which can determine if a product posing under a brand name is a counterfeit. A redesigned laptop for easier accessibility of internal components, as well as a method of identifying clothing in images, are also discussed below.

The featured patent application focuses on mapping technology, an area of innovation that we’ve seen from many of the electronic device and software manufacturers we cover. This system enables more effective road map generation from a plurality of sources of GPS data, including taxis and other vehicles on the road which are already equipped with location data sensors and devices. We also discuss a couple of patent applications which would protect printing technologies, as well as a novel system of electronic circuitry to prevent unauthorized access of cash drawers. Hewlett-Packard has a fairly strong portfolio of intellectual properties, and the USPTO has recently added dozens of patents to this company’s holdings in recent weeks. We take an in-depth look at a trio of patents related to printing technologies, including one patent for electronic storage of warranty data for printer components which HP had been trying to patent for more than a decade. We also explore a couple of patents protecting novel imaging systems, including one method for more effective capturing of lightning strike images.

Our feature patent application today almost sounds impossible, or at least exceptionally futuristic. The application discloses a novel way of using image processing to aid in speech recognition services. The system described in this application could use a camera to analyze a user’s lip activity so that sounds picked up by a microphone can be differentiated as ambient background noise or genuine speech. We also discuss a few other patent applications, including one describing more efficient blade computer system architectures and another that discusses automated methods of delegating resources to individuals using an organization’s computer network. Patent holdings are of great interest to us in this series, as is HP’s clear focus on printing technologies in their recently issued patents. A couple of issued patents that we explore today discuss improved methods of inkjet printing for pigment opacity or reducing abnormalities in print media. We also were intrigued by a novel system devised to ensure that networked printers handle print jobs with better respect to user printing preferences.