patent status for HRTFs

I'm a patent novice, wishing I could stay that way, and have been
trying to determine to what the patent status is for using head-related
transfer functions/impulse responses to synthesize binaural signals.

It seems that Higashi's 1995 patent (#5,386,082) is the oldest
enforceable  patent related to using HRIRs to synthesize binaural
signals.  More recently, Moller et al.'s 2000 patent (#6,118,875) also
synthesizes binaural signals using generalized HRIRs of short duration,
and goes as far as to encompass the application of the HRIRs to playing
back binaural signals over loudspeakers using crosstalk cancellation.
Klayman et al. of SRS Labs (#5,912,976) claim much the same
(loudspeaker playback by of signals synthesized with HRIRs) with some
more bells and whistles to increase the size of the sweet spot.

Reading the patents, I can imagine that almost all applications of
HRIRs to binaural synthesis/playback are already patented (except
further derivations thereof) - but I also wonder if perhaps I'm missing
something; perhaps the current patents are much more application
specific than I'm reading them?  Using HRIRs to synthesize binaural
signals seems obvious, but then again I started studing acoustics and
DSP well after the patents had first been filed.

Any insight or advice as to what is and isn't already covered would be
gratefully appreciated.

Thanks,

Alexis

Does anyone have any suggestions for where else I might ask about DSP
patents?  comp.patents is dead, and most searches of usenet groups just
seem to turn up Linux/OSS advocacy and debate.

Thanks,

Alexis

IMHO the best place you could go would be a technical patent attorney.
Opinions from the general internet populace in this area aren't worth
much, IMHO.

On 21 Aug 2005 22:35:52 -0700, autloc@gmail.com wrote:

>Does anyone have any suggestions for where else I might ask about DSP
>patents?  comp.patents is dead, and most searches of usenet groups just
>seem to turn up Linux/OSS advocacy and debate.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Alexis

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

autloc@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone have any suggestions for where else I might ask about DSP
> patents?  comp.patents is dead, and most searches of usenet groups just
> seem to turn up Linux/OSS advocacy and debate.

There is the sursound mailing list which discusses patents 
on surround sound technology of all kinds (among other 
things.)  Your question would get answers here:

   https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound


Bob
-- 

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no 
simpler."

                                              A. Einstein

Thanks!  I'll give that a try.

autloc@gmail.com wrote:
> Does anyone have any suggestions for where else I might ask about DSP
> patents?  comp.patents is dead, and most searches of usenet groups just
> seem to turn up Linux/OSS advocacy and debate.
> 
> Thanks,

Patent office archives?

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������

> Patent office archives?

Well, I have been researching at
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html but was hoping that
someone here might know about HRTF/binaural patents since, having
read/skimmed through hundreds of pages of patents, it's still not clear
to me what is and isn't patented.  Being in Japan, my resources are
pretty much limited to the internet.  Of course a patent attorney would
probably be my best (if expensive) bet, but it really isn't a feasible
option for me right now.  Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply.

Alexis

On 23 Aug 2005 00:34:11 -0700, autloc@gmail.com wrote:

>> Patent office archives?
>
>Well, I have been researching at
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html but was hoping that
>someone here might know about HRTF/binaural patents since, having
>read/skimmed through hundreds of pages of patents, it's still not clear
>to me what is and isn't patented.  Being in Japan, my resources are
>pretty much limited to the internet.  Of course a patent attorney would
>probably be my best (if expensive) bet, but it really isn't a feasible
>option for me right now.  Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply.

Patents can be very hard to sort out, and sometimes the wording is
intentionally ambiguous in order to provide as broad of an
interpretation as possible.

While a patent attorney can help a lot in understanding the
implications of various wording or structures in the claims, I've
heard several attorneys express the idea that a patent isn't really
valid until it's challenged in court.   Then the judge establishes
what is and isn't really there and that's much more difficult to work
around.

So if you're getting a general idea from reading the texts then that
may be as good as you can expect.  Whether a patent really encompasses
what it may or may not say that it does is often arguable and open to
interpretation all the way to a courtroom and a judge.


Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms, Intel Corp.
My opinions may not be Intel's opinions.
http://www.ericjacobsen.org