3DsoundSurge Press Release: Extreme Audio Reality (IAS audio engine) Awarded Patent

Extreme Audio Reality (IAS audio engine) Awarded Patent

Extreme Audio Reality Awarded Patent

12/15/98, Knoxville, TN -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officially awarded US Patent No 5,850,455 today to Extreme Audio Reality, Inc. (EAR), a privately-owned company based in Secaucus, New Jersey.

The patent, entitled "Discrete dynamic positioning of audio signals in a 360° environment", describes the presentation of digital audio signals to a multi-speaker computer system, incorporating the 3D coordinate mapping technology used in the Interactive Around-Sound® (IAS) audio engine.

"We are pleased to finally be awarded this patent in the United States," said Morton Salkind, CEO, "and we have been informed our international applications are proceeding smoothly as well. The issuance will also help our other USPTO submissions that are based on to the technology covered in the [455] patent."

The 455 patent protects the use of a software algorithm (or pre-calculated database) to derive attenuation values in real-time for a single audio source that is then used to present this source to more than two speakers. Unlike static multi-speaker technologies (i.e., Dolby Surround-Sound, DTS) this patent covers the dynamic re-positioning of the audio event, so that the audio presentation of an interactive on-screen object moves in-concert with the video image of that object.

"One of the stumbling blocks encountered with the [455] patent was Higashi [the inventor of HRTF]," said Glenn Arnold, VP of Technology. "We were able to show that HRTF-based patents could not be used to protect the presentation of a signal to more than two speakers, because the HRTF solution requires the listener to have as many receivers (ears) as were used in the creation of the HRTF signal. This means HRTF encoding can work only with stereo speakers or headphones, because humans only have two ears."

Now that the audio positioning patent has been issued, EAR plans to continue marketing and supporting IAS while incorporating their technology with other companies who also have interactive multi-speaker solutions.

Extreme Audio Reality, Inc., is a privately-owned company based in Secaucus, NJ, with offices in Los Angeles, CA, and Knoxville, TN. For more information contact Dan Bates at 310-204-5760, or visit their web site at http://www.earsound.com.

Interactive Around-Sound is a registered trademark and IAS is a trademark of Extreme Audio Reality, Inc. All other names may be trademarks of their respective holders.