Bizarre Patents
Pet Toilet-Like Water Disk and Food Storage
One pet-friendly inventor patented "a device for watering pets, e.g., a dog or cat." The device, he helpfully noted, "has the general shape of a toilet."
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7675982 | Method and system for reducing peak-to-average power for OFDM signals The invention provides a system and method for effectively reducing peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) in an OFDM signal. The method includes the steps of oversampling a signal in the time domain, gradually clipping an amplitude of the signal to a predefined level u... | 03/09/2010 |
| 7673219 | Cooperative relay networks using rateless codes A system and method for communicating information in a wireless cooperative relay network of nodes, the nodes including a source, a set of relays, and a destination. The source broadcasts a code word encoded as a data stream using a rateless code. The relays receive... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7672842 | Method and system for FFT-based companding for automatic speech recognition A method and system processes a speech signal. A fast Fourier transform is performed on a speech signal to produce a speech signal having a plurality of frequency bands in a frequency domain. For each frequency bands, filter the speech signal in the frequency domain... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7672834 | Method and system for detecting and temporally relating components in non-stationary signals A method detects components of a non-stationary signal. The non-stationary signal is acquired and a non-negative matrix of the non-stationary signal is constructed. The matrix includes columns representing features of the non-stationary signal at different instances... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7672524 | Quality control for image transcoding A method and apparatus transcode an image. An encoded input bitstream of the image is analyzed to obtain a structure of the encoded input bitstream, in which the image includes a region-of-interest and a background region, and in which the encoded input bitstream is... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7672289 | Method for defining, allocating and assigning addresses in ad hoc wireless networks A method allocates and assigns addresses to nodes in an ad hoc wireless network. A set of potential addresses of nodes in an ad hoc wireless network are defined as having N fields, in which the number of bits in each field is one or more bits. A subset of the set ad... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7671894 | Method and system for processing multiview videos for view synthesis using skip and direct modes A method processes a multiview videos of a scene, in which each video is acquired by a corresponding camera arranged at a particular pose, and in which a view of each camera overlaps with the view of at least one other camera. Side information for synthesizing a par... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7671786 | Method and apparatus for representing and classifying microwave back-projection radar signals A moving object is classified by transmitting, by a linear array of transmit antenna elements, a microwave into a surveillance area. A scattered microwave backprojected from a moving object is received by a linear array of receive antenna elements. Features are extr... | 03/02/2010 |
| 7667730 | Composite surveillance camera system A method and apparatus acquires images of a scene with an omni-directional imager and a pan-tilt-zoom imager. A relationship between pixels in the input image and locations in the scene is expressed in terms of polar coordinates. An event is detected in the input im... | 02/23/2010 |
| 7657028 | Method for classifying private information securely A method for securely classifying private data x of a first party Alice using a classifier H(x) of a second party Bob. The classifier is H ( | 02/02/2010 |
| 7640518 | Method and system for switching between absolute and relative pointing with direct input devices A method maps positions of a direct input device to locations of a pointer displayed on a surface. The method performs absolute mapping between physical positions of a direct input device and virtual locations of a pointer on a display device when operating in an ab... | 12/29/2009 |
| 7639289 | Increasing object resolutions from a motion-blurred image A method increases a resolution of a moving object in an image acquired of a scene by a camera. The image scene is temporally modulated according to a temporally encoding pattern, while integrating the image in a camera sensor to produce a blurred input image. The b... | 12/29/2009 |
| 7630355 | Method and system for enabling HARQ operations on channels between stations in wireless communication networks A method and system enables and improves performance of hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) operations on channels between stations of an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) wireless communication network. There, the number of parallel HARQ chan... | 12/08/2009 |
| 7628074 | System and method for motion capture in natural environments A system captures motion data in natural environments. A set of sources and a set of sensors are arranged on an object such as a human body. Each source emits ultrasonic signals detected by the sensors. A driver module is also arranged on the body. The driver module... | 12/08/2009 |
| 7623081 | Wireless UWB connection for rotating RF antenna array A movable portion of an array of antenna elements receives RF signals. A movable ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitter is connected to each antenna element, via a RF to UWB converter. A fixed portion of the antenna array is separated from the movable portion by an air ga... | 11/24/2009 |
| 7620818 | Biometric based user authentication and data encryption First biometric parameters are acquired from a user. Input data are encrypted according to the biometric parameters to produce ciphertext. The biometric parameters are encoded using a syndrome encoder to produce a syndrome code. The ciphertext and the syndrome code ... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7620369 | Adaptive frame durations for time-hopped impulse radio systems A method determines a duration of a frame in a time-hopping, impulse radio system. Channel state information of a channel between two transceivers is estimated periodically. A signal to noise and interference ratio is also estimated periodically. The frame duration ... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7619647 | Context aware surveillance system using a hybrid sensor network A surveillance system detects events in an environment. The system includes a camera arranged in the environment, and multiple context sensors arranged in the environment. The sensors are configured to detect events in the environment. A processor is coupled to the ... | 11/17/2009 |
| 7610036 | Space-time-frequency sensing of RF spectrum in cognitive radios A method detects unused frequency bands in a cognitive radio network. Multiple frequency bands for RF signals are sensed using an antenna array including a plurality of elements coupled to a receive RF chain, in which the plurality of elements are individually contr... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7609906 | Method and system for acquiring and displaying 3D light fields A method and system acquire and display light fields. A continuous light field is reconstructed from input samples of an input light field of a 3D scene acquired by cameras according to an acquisition parameterization. The continuous light is reparameterized accordi... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7609860 | Bilinear illumination model for robust face recognition A method recognizes a face in an image. A morphable model having shape and pose parameters is fitted to a face in an image to construct a three-dimensional model of the face. Texture is extracted from the face in the image using the three-dimensional model. The shap... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7609859 | Method and system for generating bi-linear models for faces A method generates a three-dimensional, bi-linear, illumination model for arbitrary faces. A large number of images are acquired of many different faces. For each face, multiple images are acquired with varying poses and varying illumination. A three-mode singular v... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7609327 | Polarization difference matting using a screen configured to reflect polarized light A method for extracting an alpha matte from images of a scene illuminated by unpolarized light is presented. A first pair of images is acquired with a foreground object placed in front of a background producing polarized light. One image of the first pair of images ... | 10/27/2009 |
| 7602990 | Matting using camera arrays A method extracts an alpha matte from images acquired of a scene by cameras. A depth plane is selected for a foreground in the scene. A trimap is determined from a set of images acquired of the scene. An epipolar plane image is constructed from the set of images and... | 10/13/2009 |
| 7599555 | System and method for image matting A method compresses a set of correlated signals by first converting each signal to a sequence of integers, which are further organized as a set of bit-planes. An inverse accumulator is applied to each bit-plane to produce a bit-plane of shifted bits, which are permu... | 10/06/2009 |
| 7598977 | Spatio-temporal graphical user interface for querying videos A method summarizes a video acquired of a scene spatially and temporally by specifying a spatial query and a temporal query. Frames of the video are selected according to the spatial query and the temporal query, and then the selected frames are composited into an i... | 10/06/2009 |
| 7593342 | Route selection in cooperative relay networks A method selects a route in a wireless cooperative relay network of nodes, the nodes including a source, a set of relays, and a destination. A codeword is encoded as a data stream. The data stream is transmitted from a source to a destination via a set of relays. Mu... | 09/22/2009 |
| 7583939 | Method and system for antenna selection in wireless networks A method and system selects a subset of antennas from a set of antennas to transmit user data in a wireless communication system. The user data is transmitted during a first transmission time intervals (TTI) using a first subset of antennas. Pilot tones are transmit... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7583823 | Method for localizing irises in images using gradients and textures A method for extracting an iris from an image is presented. Edges of an iris are detected in an image. Texture from the image is acquired. The edges and texture are combined to generate an inner boundary and an outer boundary of the iris. Also, to improve the accura... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7583808 | Locating and tracking acoustic sources with microphone arrays A method constructs a location model for locating and tracking sources of acoustic signals. Acoustic training signals are acquired from an acoustic training source at an unknown location in an environment with an array of microphones placed at unknown positions in t... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7583209 | System and method for signaling on a bus using forbidden pattern free codes Embodiments of our invention describe the method for producing forbidden pattern free (FPF) codewords using an encoder-decoder (CODEC). First, the method encodes a dataword to produce a FPF codeword by mapping dataword to a Fibonacci Numeral System space. Further, t... | 09/01/2009 |
| 7580620 | Method for deblurring images using optimized temporal coding patterns A method and system deblurs images acquired of a scene by a camera. A light field acquired of a scene is modulated temporally according to a sequence of ons and offs. An optimal coding pattern is selected. The modulated light field is integrated by a sensor of a cam... | 08/25/2009 |
| 7577252 | Method for secure object detection in images A method processes an input image securely. An input image I is acquired in a client. A set of m random images, H1, . . . , Hm, and a coefficient vector, a=[a1, . . . , am], are generated such that the input image I is I=... | 08/18/2009 |
| 7574069 | Retargeting images for small displays A method retargets an image to a different size. An input image is segmented into regions. Selected regions are cut from the input image to construct a background image. The background image is scaled to a predetermined size, and the selected regions are pasted back... | 08/11/2009 |
| 7574043 | Method for modeling cast shadows in videos A method models a scene. A video is acquired of the scene, and for each frame of the video, the method updates a set of background models for each pixel; a set of shadow models for each pixel; a set of shadow flow vectors for each color; and a background shadow map.... | 08/11/2009 |
| 7573933 | Adaptive delay adjustment for transmitted reference impulse radio systems A method determines a delay time between reference and data pulses in a time-hopping impulse radio system. Channel state information of a channel between two transceivers is estimated periodically. The delay time frame between the reference and data pulses is then d... | 08/11/2009 |
| 7573866 | Method for finding optimal paths using a stochastic network model A method finds an optimal path from a source to a destination. The possible paths from the source to the destination are represented as a stochastic graph of nodes connected by edges. Each edge has an independent probability distribution over a cost of the edge. A c... | 08/11/2009 |
| 7562279 | 2D-normalized min-sum decoding for ECC codes A method for decoding error-correcting codes normalizes messages generated by a bit node processor, and normalizes messages generated by the check node processor. ... | 07/14/2009 |
| 7558809 | Task specific audio classification for identifying video highlights A method classifies segments of a video using an audio signal of the video and a set of classes. Selected classes of the set are combined as a subset of important classes, the subset of important classes being important for a specific highlighting task, the remainin... | 07/07/2009 |
| 7555399 | Method and system for detecting changes in sensor sample streams A method detects a change in a stream of samples acquired by a sensor. A stream of samples acquired by a sensor over time is stored sequentially in a buffer in which an oldest samples is discarded and a newest sample is stored when the buffer is full, such that the ... | 06/30/2009 |