Jeri Ellsworth co-filed U.S. patent application US20050146884A1 for identifying and tracking objects on a surface, an early contribution to interactive surface computing.
On the same day as several related filings, November 24, 2004, Jeri Ellsworth and her co-inventors submitted the U.S. patent application "System and method to identify and track objects on a surface" (US20050146884A1).
This patent addresses the technical challenge of detecting, identifying, and continuously tracking multiple physical objects placed on a surface — a capability central to interactive tabletop systems, tangible user interfaces, and later augmented reality gaming platforms. Long before tabletop AR gaming systems became commercially viable, this filing captured foundational methods for surface-based object recognition.
The timing is notable: filed in 2004, this application anticipated a wave of interactive surface computing research (including well-known projects like Microsoft Surface, launched several years later) and forecasted the kind of tabletop AR gaming technology Ellsworth would pursue commercially in the following decade through companies such as Technical Illusions and Tilt Five.
As one of multiple related patents filed together, it illustrates a coordinated, systematic approach to intellectual property protection around an emerging technology cluster — object tracking, wearable displays, and fiducial synchronization — that together formed a coherent early vision of augmented reality hardware, years ahead of the technology's mainstream adoption.