Jerry wrote:

> "Persistence of Vision" is likely to be a trademark only within the
> raytracing realm; the term is a common one in at least one other field,
> and also plays on the title of at least one art piece. It is very likely
> that a painting titled "Persistence of Vision" would not be considered a
> violation of POV's trademark.

"Persistence of Vision" is a physiological phenomenon, the inability of
the human eye to resolve images below a certain temporal threshold.  It
causes us to mistake a sufficiently quick sequence of still frames for a
smooth animation, something that animators find handy. ;-)  I suspect
that "Persistence of Memory" (Salvador Dali's classic painting of a
melting watch draped over a tree limb) is a reference to "Persistence of
Vision".

"POV" is more commonly an abbreviation for "Point-of-View".

-Mark Gordon

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