A patent now covers a collaborative VR retail-design system

The picture

On 12 November 2024, the US Patent and Trademark Office issued Patent 12,141,500, "Virtual Reality System for Retail Store Design," filed 11 August 2022 and assigned to Target Brands Inc., originally filed by SPACE150 Inc. The USPTO's own printed patent document, retrieved 16 September 2026, confirms the number, title and filing history; because the document is an image-only scan, its full claim text is read here through Google Patents' mirror of the official record, which reproduces the same granted claims and dates.

What the documents show

The claims describe multiple computing devices connected through a VR server with voice streaming: when a user's hand reaches a threshold distance from tracking cameras, a voice-streaming server activates to send microphone audio to other users' speakers, with a visual indicator switching from a touch-controller icon to a microphone icon to show when transmission is live. Users manipulate virtual fixtures and merchandise displays built from "dimensionally accurate" product representations, and the system exports data as CAD files and augmented-reality formats to support real-world implementation. This is the patent's own claim language describing what the invention is designed to do; it is not evidence that any specific commercial product has implemented it, and no cited source names one that does.

What it is allowed to decide

A granted patent is a legal instrument, not a previs artifact, so the decision-class ladder does not apply to the document itself. What it does establish is Provenance over a specific workflow: the collaborative-VR-with-proximity-voice design described in the claims is now owned intellectual property, a risk vector previsualization teams more often associate with AI-generated assets than with software architecture. The claims assert "dimensionally accurate" product representations as a design goal, but the patent does not itself establish Dimensional authority for any built implementation: a grant protects the claimed invention, not a verified instance of it, so no cited source certifies that a shipped product actually achieved that accuracy.

The disclosure label

A retail-design VR tool resembling this system could carry a label stating: this workflow may fall within the claims of US Patent 12,141,500, granted 12 November 2024 to Target Brands Inc.; it holds documented Provenance as protected intellectual property; it does not itself certify the dimensional accuracy its claims describe as a design goal. A team's patent counsel would plausibly assert this label before shipping a similar feature.

• Does any specific commercial retail-VR product's own materials cite this patent, or is any resemblance only conceptual?
• Do the granted claims cover the general practice of proximity-triggered voice in VR collaboration, or only the specific combination of elements recited?
• Has Target Brands or SPACE150 asserted this patent against another vendor, or does it remain unlitigated as of this retrieval?

Visualization workflows, not only AI-generated assets, can be patented property. A previs vendor's ordinary practice could brush against a claim like this one without the resulting picture itself looking unusual.