The story behind Final Step - AI is not only about invention. It is also about the challenge of protecting an idea that arrived before much of the surrounding technology had fully matured.
After first conceiving the original concept in 1990, Rick Baker began a decades-long journey involving patent filings, research, technical development, commercialization attempts, and legal battles relating to computer-generated personalized audio-visual instruction.
1990 - Original concept conceived
1992 - First Australian provisional patent filing
1995 - First Australian patent granted
1995 onwards - International patent protection pursued
2007 onwards - MEMS sensor instructional system development
2021 - US Patent No. 11,210,963 issued
In 1992, Rick Baker filed for provisional patent protection in Australia covering a system designed to capture information relating to a person and/or object, transmit that information to a computer system, compare it with stored expert knowledge, generate visual instructional content, generate appropriate audio instructional comments, and combine both into a personalized audio-visual instructional presentation.
At the time, the concept was highly unusual because most instructional systems simply displayed fixed information and could not adapt personally to the individual circumstances being analyzed.
The filing represented the first formal patent step following the original concept conceived in 1990.
The first Australian patent was later granted in 1995.
Over time, related patents were also issued in countries including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
One of the major difficulties surrounding the invention was timing.
In the early 1990s, many of the supporting technologies needed to fully implement the system were still immature. Motion capture, computer graphics, telecommunications, processing power, sensors, and real-time computing capabilities were all far more limited than they are today.
The invention pointed toward a future that many people could not yet fully see or build.
As technology advanced during the following decades, systems increasingly began moving closer to the original 1990 vision of computer-generated personalized audio-visual instruction and advice.
A major issue later emerged surrounding what is sometimes referred to as after-arising technology.
The original invention was conceived during a period when powerful computing systems were typically remote computer databases or larger computer systems connected through communications networks.
As personal computers later became dramatically more powerful, questions arose regarding whether newer computer systems should be treated as technological equivalents of the earlier systems described in the original patent filings.
This became part of a much larger legal and technical debate surrounding how patent protection applies when modern technology eventually catches up with an early-stage invention concept.
As movement tracking technology evolved, Rick Baker later developed a second invention using MEMS motion sensors including accelerometers, gyroscopes, and related sensing devices.
The second invention expanded the personalized instructional concept by using sensor-based movement information to more accurately analyze positions, motion, and physical activity.
This later work became part of a continuing effort to improve computer-generated personalized audio-visual instruction through the use of advanced sensing technologies.
One of the issued patents from this later development includes US Patent No. 11,210,963 titled:
"Method and apparatus for providing personalized audio-visual instruction."
The following issued United States patents are part of Rick Baker's documented work in computer-generated personalized audio-visual instructional systems and related sensing technologies.
US Patent No. 5,486,001
Personalized instructional aid.
US Patent No. 11,210,963
Method and apparatus for providing personalized audio-visual instruction.
The patent journey behind Final Step - AI is not simply a legal history.
It is part of the wider story of how an inventor identified the possibility of computers generating personalized audio-visual instruction and advice before the surrounding technologies, industries, and markets had fully developed.
The journey involved invention, technical research, early Internet development, commercialization attempts, patent prosecution, litigation, and continuing work involving personalized instructional systems, motion sensing technologies, and artificial intelligence.
Final Step - AI presents this history as a real-world case study in invention, persistence, technological timing, and the challenges faced by independent inventors working ahead of mainstream technology.