Judge dismisses crowd dummy case

October 23, 2007 A Los Angeles federal court judge has invalidated two patents held by a California company that provides inflatable dummies to fill up scenes in which large crowds are needed. In December, Grover Beach-based Crowd in a Box sued its competition, the Inflatable Crowd Co., claiming that it held two patents on the use of multiple "life-sized humanoid figures" to simulate background crowds. [...] last week, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Klausner disagreed with Crowd's contention and dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the two patents were invalid because of their "obviousness."

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