Oscar-Winning Lenses Ruled an Optical Delusion

Sometimes, the camera might indeed lie.

Tarnishing Oscar’s gilt, a federal judge has ruled that a cinematographer faked a videotape to win a patent for a lens system that earned him an Academy Award.

The Panavision/Frazier lens system has for nearly a decade been considered one of the most advanced pieces of camera equipment by Hollywood’s finicky moviemakers because of its supposedly cutting-edge ability to keep objects both far and near in focus at the same time.

Its creator, James Frazier, won an Oscar for scientific and technical achievement in 1997 for designing the system.

But last week, U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess in Los Angeles annulled Frazier’s patent, saying the design “defied the laws of physics.” The judge said the video presented to patent officers was made with a completely different set of camera lenses.

Frazier made “false and misleading statements to the patent examiner,” Feess wrote in his ruling last week, and the statements “were made with an intent to deceive.

“Contrary to Frazier’s claims ... the lens displays the same depth-of-field properties as every other conventional lens system.”

Officials with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which oversees the Academy Awards, said Monday that they weren’t aware of the specifics of the case.

Frazier’s lawyer, Alfred Fabricant, said he plans to appeal.

The patent application, submitted in 1994, relied on a videotape of nature footage that Frazier claimed to have shot using his lenses. That tape persuaded Panavision Inc., the leading provider of cameras and lenses to Hollywood, to sign an exclusive licensing deal for the lenses’ technical design.

The design was heralded as an amazing accomplishment and dazzled filmmakers across town. Panavision and Frazier then slapped a patent infringement suit against P&S; Technick GmbH Feinmechanik, a German corporation that made a similar lens system. When the trial began, Fabricant said Panavision enlisted a handful of high-profile cinematographers -- including John Schwartzman, known for “Pearl Harbor” and “Armageddon,” and Steven Poster, former president of the American Society of Cinematographers -- to testify about “what a fabulous and great accomplishment this lens was.”

Poster, who used the lens systems while shooting “Stuart Little 2,” said Monday that he has found that they “do what they claimed to do.” Added Poster, “I don’t know what the problem is.”

As the case progressed, questions arose about whether the lenses could indeed do what Frazier’s patent application claimed. Even Panavision engineers had difficulty making the lenses work as well as promised.

Panavision settled with P&S; Technick and with two New York rental equipment companies also named as defendants. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Frazier persisted in the case, which led to Feess’ ruling.