VentureBeat

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I can smell a legal battle coming in gesture controls of TVs, computers, game consoles and other gadgets.
I get that feeling because Canesta is announcing shortly that it has been awarded its 37th patent. Normally, that’s not a big deal.
But innovations in user-interfaces are hot now. The user interface of smart [...]

Maybe I’m paranoid, but I can smell a legal battle coming in gesture controls of TVs, computers, game consoles and other gadgets.

I get that feeling because Canesta is announcing shortly that it has been awarded its 37th patent. Normally, that’s not a big deal.

But innovations in user-interfaces are hot now. The user interface of smart phones is turning into a possible legal battleground between Apple and Palm, since Palm is using multi-touch screens — which Apple says it has patented — in its upcoming Palm Pre.

San Jose, Calif.-based Canesta is one of several companies developing a camera that can see objects in three dimensions and thereby track their locations and movements. These 3-D sensors can be used in everything from controlling TVs to detecting hazards as a car is backing up. Canesta’s sensors can capture data on its CMOS (complimentary metal oxide semiconductor) sensor chips as much as 60 times a second.

Jim Spare, chief executive of Canesta, said the core of the patents refers to “time of flight” technology, or the design of the image sensor that measures the time it takes light to travel. The patents also cover software techniques you need to deploy the 3-D cameras. In that space, Canesta has rivals such as GestureTek, Softkinetic, and Mgestik. Spare said the point of getting the patents is not to use them aggressively, but to give customers the confidence to deploy his technology in mass volume.

“This is an emerging market at its early stages and it’s better to cooperate,” Spare said.

The Canesta technology, which is likely to appear in TVs and computers first, can be used in new interfaces where users can control what’s happening on a TV screen or game without touching anything.

Canesta competes with camera rivals such as PrimeSense and 3DV Systems. Another company, GestureTek, also has a lot of patents on gesture controls. Spare believes that each company in this space is taking a different technology approach. But we’ll see if there is overlap and if lawyers see a reason to pounce with patent infringement lawsuits.

GestureTek has told me that they have a rich set of patents in the field of gesture control. But two-dimensional gesture control is very different from 3-D gesture control, which is the kind of thing that Canesta does.

Canesta has raised more than $58 million from Carlyle Venture Partners, Honda Motor Co., Hotung Capital Management, Korea Global IT Fund, and Venrock Associates. It was founded in 1999. Check out our video of Canesta’s technology in action at the International Consumer Electronics Show.

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