The preceding sections examined Kinect demonstrations, commercial adoption and the underlying camera and depth-sensing technology. Section 18 brings together the commercial products and companies that became relevant to the Baker v. Microsoft et al. litigation.
The purpose of this section is identification and historical organisation. It records the products, their publicly demonstrated functions and their place within the Kinect ecosystem. It does not treat the presence of similar functions as an adjudicated finding of patent infringement. Richard Baker's formal legal allegations are preserved in Section 19.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Kinect provided the principal hardware and software platform around which many of the later products operated. Kinect enabled software to receive information about a user's body movement without requiring a conventional handheld controller.
The platform combined sensing hardware, computer processing, software and audio-visual output. Developers could use Kinect data to create applications responding to movement, gesture and other forms of user activity.
Microsoft and its development partners used Kinect capabilities in applications extending beyond conventional gaming. Fitness, exercise and training were prominent examples because these applications required the system to observe physical activity while presenting audio-visual content to the participant.
Within the FINALSTEP history, such applications are significant because they can be examined against the much earlier documentary record concerning computer-assisted sports instruction, observation of current performance and personalised presentation.
Ubisoft became an important commercial participant through the Your Shape fitness products. The surviving demonstrations and interviews show camera-based exercise interaction and the integration of the participant into an audio-visual fitness environment.
Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released as a Kinect launch title for Xbox 360, extended the Your Shape fitness concept into Microsoft's Xbox ecosystem. The product used Kinect sensing within a fitness application designed to guide users through exercise activities.
Nike+ Kinect Training represents a later development of Kinect-based personal fitness and training. The product combined Nike's training brand with Kinect sensing and an interactive computer presentation intended to provide a personalised exercise experience.
The archive preserves material associated with the product because it is closely related to the historical subject at the centre of FINALSTEP: using computer systems to observe a person's physical performance and participate in the instructional or coaching process.
The litigation record extended beyond a single fitness product. Multiple companies and products were examined because Kinect provided a common sensing platform that could be incorporated into different software applications.
The original Plaintiff's Infringement Contentions remain the authoritative archive source for the complete identification of accused defendants, products and asserted claim relationships. FINALSTEP therefore avoids replacing that filing with a reconstructed product list on this historical page.
Although the products differed in presentation and commercial purpose, the Kinect-related fitness and training systems can be examined at a high level through a recurring functional pattern:
This is a FINALSTEP analytical description intended to help readers compare system functions. It is not a substitute for the wording of the patent claims or the detailed claim charts used in the litigation.
The reason these commercial products became important to Richard Baker was their relationship, in his view, to concepts documented much earlier in the archive.
The historical sequence begins with sports instruction, camera/video capture of current performance, comparison or evaluation, and personalised audio-visual presentation. It later develops through remote and local computing, improved communications, faster processors, advanced graphics and additional sensing technologies.
By the Kinect period, many of those enabling technologies were available in consumer hardware. Baker's position was that certain commercial implementations used that later technology to perform functions falling within his earlier patent rights.
The commercial record is also significant because Kinect-related technology involved a network of participants rather than one isolated product. Microsoft supplied the Xbox and Kinect platform, while software and brand partners developed applications using the platform's capabilities.
This helps explain why the later litigation materials contain multiple defendants and multiple accused products. The dispute concerned not only a sensing device but the use of sensing, processing and interactive presentation within commercial systems.
FINALSTEP maintains a strict distinction at this point in the archive:
Keeping those categories separate allows the historical evidence to remain useful regardless of whether a reader agrees with Baker's legal interpretation.
The next section reaches the document that brings the principal threads of the archive together: the Plaintiff's Disclosure of Asserted Claims and Preliminary Infringement Contentions filed on 8 February 2016.
Rather than paraphrasing the entire infringement case in Section 18, FINALSTEP uses that original filing as the primary source for Baker's formal position. It identifies the asserted claims, defendants, accused products, claim charts, supporting evidence and the Doctrine of Equivalents and After-Arising Technology arguments advanced in the litigation.
The following selected records document commercial products and implementations associated with the later Baker v. Microsoft et al. litigation. Complete third-party articles and compiled copies are retained in the private FINALSTEP archive; the public page provides historical citations and concise descriptions so that the evidence remains distinct from the formal infringement allegations preserved in Section 19.
Jim Reilly - IGN - 8 January 2010
Contemporary reporting that Project Natal's motion processing was being moved from an internal camera processor to software-based processing performed by the Xbox 360. Retained as historical technical context concerning the relationship between the Natal/Kinect sensing device and the computer processing platform.
Publication status: Historical complete copy retained in the private FINALSTEP archive.
Contemporary market records reported that Kinect sold approximately eight million units in its first 60 days and was recognised by Guinness World Records as the fastest-selling consumer electronics device. Retained as evidence of the exceptional scale and speed of Kinect's initial commercial adoption.
Publication status: The compiled Wikipedia/Wired copy is retained in the private FINALSTEP archive; the public page records the historical citation rather than republishing the complete third-party material.
Jill Duffy - Popular Science - 8 January 2010
Contemporary technical reporting describing how Project Natal combined depth sensing, machine learning, body-part identification and skeletal tracking to convert observed human movement into information usable by Xbox software. Retained as historical technical context for the sensing and processing platform underlying later Kinect commercial applications.
Publication status: Historical complete copy retained in the private FINALSTEP archive.
Ubisoft announcement - 2 June 2009
Ubisoft's contemporary announcement for the Wii version of Your Shape described proprietary Body Tracking technology that scanned the participant, projected the participant's image onto the television, considered body shape, fitness level and personal goals, recommended an individually suited workout program, and provided verbal and visual feedback through a virtual coach.
Publication status: Historical complete copy retained in the private FINALSTEP archive.
Ubisoft - 14 June 2010
Ubisoft's contemporary announcement described Your Shape: Fitness Evolved as combining Kinect with proprietary Player Projection technology. Ubisoft stated that the participant's real body was tracked during training, allowing direct feedback, while fitness programs were adapted to individual goals and capabilities and evolved as fitness improved.
Publication status: Historical copies of the complete third-party reproductions are retained in the private FINALSTEP archive.
Contemporary product material described Ubisoft's Player Projection technology as tracking the participant's body and movements in real time. Workouts were described as being created according to fitness level and personal goals, while the application provided movement-specific feedback and on-screen guidance to assist the participant in correcting exercise form.
Publication status: Historical complete compiled copy retained in the private FINALSTEP archive.
Archive note: Product descriptions, demonstrations and related commercial records establish what was publicly shown or documented about these implementations. Complete third-party articles and compiled copies are retained privately and are not republished through FINALSTEP. These records are not presented as adjudicated findings that any patent claim was infringed; the formal accused-product and infringement record remains in Section 19.