Name the product, then the pipeline that reframes it. Google's phones are praised for their cameras despite using sensors that are often unremarkable on paper. The explanation is that the camera is a software pipeline, and two grants show its span. At the front, US12114078B2, a "Low-light autofocus technique" (October 8, 2024), makes sure the camera locks focus in the dark. At the back, US11776095B2, "Photo relighting using deep neural networks" (October 3, 2023), synthesizes new lighting after capture.
What it costs, what it earns, who owns it. These two patents represent opposite ends of the same chain. Autofocus is pure capture — the physical prerequisite, classified in camera-control class H04N 23/73. Relighting is pure synthesis — generating light that was never there, classified in image-enhancement class G06T 5/008. Between them sit fusion, alignment, tone mapping, and noise reduction. The whole chain is software, and Google's edge is owning more of it, better, than rivals.
Why bookending the pipeline is the analysis: a camera reputation is only as strong as its weakest pipeline stage. By holding IP at both the capture prerequisite and the generative finish, Google protects the chain end to end — not just the showy features but the foundational focus step they depend on.
The strategic frame, stated plainly: phone-camera competition has migrated almost entirely off the sensor and onto the pipeline. Sensors are bought from a few suppliers (largely Sony); the differentiation is the processing. Google's two-ended portfolio is the clearest illustration that the camera is now a software product wearing a lens.
Scope, stated carefully: these are granted patents to Google covering specific methods at each pipeline end, within an enormous computational-photography landscape shared with Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm. They illustrate the pipeline strategy, not a lock on it.
Follow the filing, not the megapixels. Judge a phone camera by its pipeline, not its sensor spec — and Google's pipeline, from low-light autofocus to neural relighting, is on the docket from end to end.