Celebrity Inventors
Comic actor Danny Kaye received patent D166,807 for the co-design of "Blowout Toy or the Like". It's similar to one of those toys that unravels when you blow into at a birthday party except Kaye's has three blowouts going in different directions, not just one.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 8156517 | Methods and apparatus to enforce a power off state of an audience measurement device during shipping Methods and apparatus to enforce a power off state of an audience measurement device during shipping of the device are disclosed herein. An example portable audience measurement device includes a housing, a media detector in the housing to collect media exposure dat... | 04/10/2012 |
| 7805740 | System and method for providing advertisement based on speech recognition This invention relates to a system and method for providing dedicated television advertisements based on speech recognition of telephone conversations. The home user makes telephone calls using a landline, cellular phone or VoIP phone. The user may also be watching ... | 09/28/2010 |
| 7788684 | Media monitoring, management and information system Systems and methods are provided for monitoring transmissions of media content (such as audio and audiovisual content) in order to obtain independent and objective data regarding the use of specific media content recordings or works within the transmissions. Process... | 08/31/2010 |
| 7765564 | Audio based methods and apparatus for detecting a channel change event Methods and apparatus for detecting a channel change event are disclosed. The disclosed methods and apparatus detect a channel change event by monitoring an audio signal of an information presentation device such as a television system. The monitored audio signal is... | 07/27/2010 |
| 7421723 | Detection of media links in broadcast signals A detection apparatus includes a tuner tuned to the program and a meter coupled to the tuner and arranged to detect content ancillary information from the program tuned by the tuner. The content ancillary information may be a media link, closed captioning informatio... | 09/02/2008 |
| 7366461 | Method and apparatus for improving the quality of a recorded broadcast audio program Recordings of broadcast audio content often contain errors (e.g., noise, signal loss, interference, talkover). A method and apparatus are provided for improving the quality of such a recording. Multiple recordings of a broadcast audio program are identified, and are... | 04/29/2008 |
| 7343615 | Television proximity sensor Systems and methods for determining whether a television is on and in near proximity are provided. An example system includes a sensor, an analog-to-digital converter, and a digital signal processor. The digital signal processor processes a set of digital audio samp... | 03/11/2008 |
| 7336802 | Digital watermarking system using scrambling method A digital watermark extracting apparatus that extract a watermark hidden in host data is provided. A location information generator generates a plurality of candidate watermark locations according to a secret key. An extractor extracts from each of the candidate wat... | 02/26/2008 |
| 7316025 | Method and apparatus for encoding/decoding broadcast or recorded segments and monitoring audience exposure thereto Methods and apparatus for encoding and decoding information in broadcast or recorded segment signals are described. In certain embodiments, an audience monitoring system encodes identification information in the audio signal portion of a broadcast or recorded segmen... | 01/01/2008 |
| 7302419 | Dynamic operator identification system and methods A system and method for dynamically determining the demographic identity of an individual operating a set-top box, is disclosed which may include monitoring set top-box events for a plurality of set-top boxes, correlating set-top box events with demographic characte... | 11/27/2007 |
| 7284255 | Audience survey system, and system and methods for compressing and correlating audio signals A system and method are disclosed for performing audience surveys of broadcast audio from radio and television. A small body-worn portable collection unit samples the audio environment of the survey member and stores highly compressed features of the audio programmi... | 10/16/2007 |
| 7266466 | Watermark time scale searching Method and apparatus are described for compensating for a linear time scale change in a received signal, so as to correctly rescale the frame sequence of the received signal. Firstly, an initial estimate of the sequence of symbols is extracted from the received sign... | 09/04/2007 |
| 7256840 | Digital television signal translator A tuner of a digital television signal translator tunes to receive an RF digital television signal on a first selected television channel. A demodulator provides a baseband digital television signal from the RF digital television signal to which the tuner is tuned. ... | 08/14/2007 |
| 7236941 | Event invalidation method The invention concerns a computerized method of invalidating set-top box events. The method may include monitoring set-top box events, storing the set-top box events in a first array, calculating a first trend in the first array of set-top box events, invalidating t... | 06/26/2007 |
| 7224819 | Integrating digital watermarks in multimedia content A method for tracking media signals in multimedia content is provided by uniquely identifying the multimedia content with a digital watermark identifier. A video channel is preferably embedded with a first watermark identifier. The first identifier uniquely identifi... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7210157 | Apparatus and method of program classification using observed cues in the transcript information A method for classification of a program includes receiving transcript information associated with the program, identifying at least one cue of a plurality of cues in the transcript information wherein each of the plurality of cues has associated therewith a type of... | 04/24/2007 |
| 7197472 | Market data acquisition system A system and method for using inverse mathematical principles in the analysis of compatible datasets so that correlations and trends within and between said datasets can be uncovered. The present invention is tailored to the analysis of datasets that are extremely l... | 03/27/2007 |
| 7194752 | Method and apparatus for automatically recognizing input audio and/or video streams A method and system for the automatic identification of audio, video, multimedia, and/or data recordings based on immutable characteristics of these works. The invention does not require the insertion of identifying codes or signals into the recording. This allows t... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7194421 | Content attribute impact invalidation method The invention concerns a method of determining the effect of content attributes on content ratings. The method may include obtaining content attributes, recording set-top box events as content is experienced without knowing individual-specific demographic informatio... | 03/20/2007 |
| 7184570 | Methods and systems for steganographic processing Electronic content data that is copied without authorization can be traced back to its source using steganographically encoded information. Such arrangements are useful, e.g., where electronic content is rendered to an audience—one of whom may be making an illicit... | 02/27/2007 |
| 7139723 | Privacy compliant multiple dataset correlation system A system and method for using inverse mathematical principles in the analysis of compatible datasets so that correlations and trends within and between said datasets can be uncovered. The present invention is tailored to the analysis of datasets that are extremely l... | 11/21/2006 |
| 7100181 | Television proximity sensor Systems and methods for determining whether a television is on and in as near proximity are provided. An example system includes a sensor, an analog-to-digital converter, and a digital signal processor. The digital signal processor processes a set of digital audio s... | 08/29/2006 |
| 7089575 | Method of using transcript information to identify and learn commercial portions of a program Advertisers want to deliver their message in a relatively short period of time. This leads to the product name, company name and other identifying features being repeated frequently during a commercial broadcast. Transcript information can be used to detect commerci... | 08/08/2006 |
| 7064796 | Method and system for re-identifying broadcast segments using statistical profiles A method and system for extracting segments from a broadcast television signal uses a mean display attribute value of pixels of each successive frame of a video component of the signal to identify segment transitions. Elapsed times between the identified segment tra... | 06/20/2006 |
| 7062528 | Method and system for identifying a time specific event Method and system for providing a compact, portable electronic devices capable of storing data related to time specific events such as music broadcasts, television broadcasts and advertisements, and which are capable of recalling the stored time specific events to p... | 06/13/2006 |
| 7036136 | Bias compensating remote audience survey system and method A bias compensating remote audience survey system (34) is configured to identify radio stations (162) to which tuners (24) are tuned. The tuners (24) have predetermined signals (26) emitted therefrom. The survey system (34) ... | 04/25/2006 |
| 7006555 | Spectral audio encoding Blocks of audio are encoded based upon corresponding first and second frequencies. The first and second frequencies are hopped from block to block. An audio quality measure (AQM) is computed for each block of audio such that, if x out of y blocks of audio have an AQ... | 02/28/2006 |
| 6993283 | Wireless audio transmission system A wireless transmission and reception system to convey analog signals within a local transmission area. The wireless transmission system includes a first encoder to receive an analog signal, to digitize the analog signal, and to compress the digitized analog signal ... | 01/31/2006 |
| 6972698 | GPS e-marker Method and system for a satellite network data communication enabled electronic bookmarking device for bookmarking positional information of a desired location or locations in addition to bookmarking broadcast music clips over registered radio or television stations... | 12/06/2005 |
| 6968565 | Detection of content display observers with prevention of unauthorized access to identification signal The invention enables and/or facilitates the display of personalized content to content observers by content providers (e.g., advertisers) who disseminate content over a network. The invention enables identification of particular content observers at a content displ... | 11/22/2005 |
| 6871180 | Decoding of information in audio signals Systems and methods are provided for decoding a message symbol in an audio signal. This message symbol is represented by first and second code symbols displaced in time. Values representing the code signals are accumulated and the accumulated values are examined to ... | 03/22/2005 |
| 6862355 | Message reconstruction from partial detection A method and system for reliably detecting encoded messages included in audio media data in varying acoustic environments, where only a portion of the predetermined message may have been received or detected. ... | 03/01/2005 |
| 6801261 | Video and/or audio digital data processing The invention relates to the processing of digital data which is transmitted by broadcasters of television programs for receipt by users of a broadcast data receiver which includes decoding the transmitted data and then processing the decoded data to generate video ... | 10/05/2004 |
| 6766523 | System and method for identifying and segmenting repeating media objects embedded in a stream An “object extractor” automatically identifies and segments repeating media objects in a media stream. “Objects” are any section of non-negligible duration, i.e., a song, video, advertisement, jingle, etc., which would be considered to be a logical unit by a... | 07/20/2004 |
| 6567978 | Television audience monitoring system and method employing display of cable converter box A display interface device and method for determining a currently tuned-to channel of a set-top converter box having an electronic display that indicates the currently tuned-to channel via seven-segment display elements in response to drive signals provid... | 05/20/2003 |
| 6560349 | Audio monitoring using steganographic information An audio monitoring device includes a microphone for receiving sound energy from a loudspeaker, and a steganographic decoder that decodes the signal produced by the microphone. By reference to the steganographically-decoded information, the device can be ... | 05/06/2003 |
| 6519769 | Audience measurement system employing local time coincidence coding The present invention provides a system for recording a viewer's television viewership habits. Sensors monitor the audio signal, synchronization signal, and video signal emanating from the television. A time coincidence channel tag is mixed with the trans... | 02/11/2003 |
| 6484316 | Television audience monitoring system and apparatus and method of aligning a magnetic pick-up device A signal strength meter for use in determining an optimal position of a magnetic pick-up device. The signal strength meter includes a vertical synchronization processing circuit, and audio processing circuit and a power and control circuit. The signal str... | 11/19/2002 |
| 6421445 | Apparatus and methods for including codes in audio signals Apparatus and methods for including a code having at least one code frequency component in an audio signal are provided. The abilities of various frequency components in the audio signal to mask the code frequency component to human hearing are evaluated ... | 07/16/2002 |
| 6405370 | Television audience monitoring system and method employing tuner interface of set-top converter box A tuner interface device and method for determining a currently tuned-to channel of a set-top converter box having an electronic tuner that is addressable over a bus within the set-top converter box. The tuner interface device includes an electrical conne... | 06/11/2002 |
