[Spines11]

"Yeah, I don't buy that this is an invention in the 21st century, with no prior art."

Maybe not in the 21st century, but it might be in the 20th century which is when the patent was filed (1996).

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...

[mirkules]

Fair enough, but I've read research papers on pattern recognition that predate even 1996 (the field was pretty hot in the 80s before computing power caught up with theory)