COMMAND AUDIO GRANTED ANOTHER U.S. PATENT COVERING ON-DEMAND MEDIA
LATEST ADDITION TO STRONG PATENT PORTFOLIO CONFIRMS COMMAND AUDIO'S IMPORTANCE TO FAST GROWING PRODUCT CATEGORIES SUCH AS PVRS
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - December 14, 2001 - Command Audio, a pioneer in the field of on-demand interactive media, announced today that it has been issued a fifth patent (USPTO number 6,330,334) covering the audio aspects of consumer devices and services that store broadcast media for playback at the consumer's convenience. Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) and the "on-demand" services they enable are the best-known embodiments of this technology.
As a pioneer in on-demand media technology, Command Audio has developed a strong portfolio of intellectual property. Dating back to 1993, Command Audio has been granted nine U.S. patents for various inventions and technologies that make possible the advances that are revolutionizing the way people consume media.These patents predate the development of the PVR market and cover a wide range of broadcast transmission technologies, devices and systems that incorporate on-demand functionality, an essential component of PVRs. In addition to its U.S. patents, the Company has been issued foreign counterpart patents from the European and Japanese patent offices.
Don Bogue, chairman and CEO of Command Audio commented: "Command Audio's intellectual property portfolio forms a fundamental underlying component of a number of rapidly growing consumer audio and video products and services. We are confident that companies participating in these categories will be attracted to our licensing program."
Below is one of several claims in Command Audio's patents:
USPTO PATENT NO. 6,330,334, CLAIM 44:
A receiver comprising:
a television tuner;
a controller coupled to the television tuner and which provides audio from a signal received at the television tuner, wherein the audio is carried in an audio or video portion of television signals received at the tuner;
a memory coupled to the controller and which stores the audio;
a user interface coupled to the controller and which provides a menu; and
an output device coupled to the controller and which outputs the stored audio in response to a selection from the menu, wherein the stored audio has a designation
ABOUT COMMAND AUDIO
Command Audio owns and licenses a portfolio of intellectual property critical to the transmission, navigation and presentation of stored media. Founded in 1995, Command Audio pioneered the development of on-demand interactive audio. Command Audio's intellectual property broadly covers the audio aspects of consumer devices and services that store broadcast media for playback at the consumer's convenience. Command Audio is a privately held company backed by strategic investors Macrovision, Motorola and Texas Instruments and leading financial investors, including Canaan Partners, Franklin Resources, Granite Ventures, J.P. Morgan Capital Partners, St. Paul Venture Capital and Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures. For more information, please visit Command Audio's web site.
Contact Information:
Anna Moore
Tel: 650 631 6462
Fax: 650 631 6171
corpinfo@commandaudio.com
