The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 20, 2007
Filed:
Mar. 27, 2001
Kunihiro Yamamoto, Kanagawa, JP;
Kentaro Matsumoto, Tokyo, JP;
Kiyoshi Kusama, Kanagawa, JP;
Canon Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A plurality of images and image features of each of the plurality of images are stored in a form correlated with the images in an external storage device of an image retrieval apparatus. In retrieval of a desired image from the plurality of images that have been stored in the external storage device, a plurality of image features regarding one image are acquired by varying, over a predetermined range, each of the image features that have been stored in the external storage device. A fuzzy image search is conducted by calculating the degree of similarity between each of the plurality of images and a retrieval source image based upon the image features that have been acquired and the image features of the retrieval-source image.