I'll venture to guess that more than a few narcissistic racers on this board have viewed and/or purchased event photos of themselves taken by shooters for companies now being sued.
If this guy wins his lawsuit, could the events that employed the defendants be held liable? I'm guessing not.
Thousand Oaks, CA June 14, 2007.
Peter H. Wolf, President of PhotoCrazy(r), Inc. has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against 8 major event photography and web-hosting companies in the U.S. The Complaint asserts that Wolf has lost millions of dollars when photographers took pictures of athletes at marathons,
triathlons and other sporting events and then used his patented process of providing event photos for inspection, selection and distribution via a computer network.
Wolf retained the law firm of Goldstein, Faucett & Prebeg, L.L.P. in Houston, TX to file suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Brightroom, Inc., Brightroom, Inc. d/b/a Action
Sports International, Brightroom, Inc. d/b/a Backprint.com, Island Photography, Inc., Elizabeth M. Kreutz, Bird's Eye View, Inc., DigiLabs, Inc., Printroom, Inc., SmugMug, Inc. and Hour Photos, Inc. d/b/a Master Photo U.S.A.
The Complaint maintains these companies have and continue to infringe, either directly, by inducement or by contributing to the infringement of U.S. Patent 7,047,214. Monetary damages and an injunction are being sought to permanently stop the infringing, inducing or contributory infringing
activities.
Wolf estimates there are thousands of infringers operating today and additional lawsuits may be filed.
Several major event photography firms and a web-hosting company are already licensed and others are negotiating licenses to use the patented processes.
Wolf immigrated to the U.S. after escaping from East Germany in the 1960's. He worked his way through school and graduated from the University of Illinois in 1973. Wolf is the inventor or co-inventor of 14 U.S. patents with 3 patents still pending. "I started PhotoCrazy(r), Inc. in 1999 after developing and applying for patent protection on a process that revolutionized event photography" says Wolf. "Everyone copied my processes and it took six years for several U.S. Patent examiners to scrutinize and find my claims worthy of patent issuance. During that time I lost business to people who used the processes I invented and developed. I thought I had realized my 'American Dream' once the patent issued, only to find out that it requires skilled and experienced patent lawyers to enforce my claims."
Wolf plans to use most of the royalty proceeds to fulfill his wife's dream of developing community Hospice Houses throughout the nation where anyone with a terminal diagnosis will be cared for and treated with dignity at no cost to the end of their life.
Wolf's most recent and still patent pending invention is an automatic and remotely controlled camera system that can outperform manual photography in many sports event environments.