Patents Represented by Attorney Joseph S. Tripoli
  • Patent number: 7145605
    Abstract: An apparatus for synchronizing chroma and luma data includes a first handshake block for luma data, a second handshake block for chroma data, and a means for providing a handshake signal to the first block and to the second block based at least in part on a determination that they are both ready to transfer data, and further for inhibiting provision of the handshake signal based at least in part on a determination that at least one of the first block and the second block is not ready to transfer data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2002
    Date of Patent: December 5, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventor: Paul Dean Filliman
  • Patent number: 7130621
    Abstract: An architecture for a multimedia peer-to-peer home network allows the automated definition of peer groups, or zones, by using group labels, where each peer is capable of automatically identifying whether other peers are members of the same group, or of another group, and where each peer may freely cooperate with other peers of the same group, e.g. exchange information or share resources like storage capacity. Using this architecture, it is e.g. possible that a user who is accessing a node within a peer group has also access to any other node of the peer group, without being requested for authentication. Another characteristic is that other peer groups can be defined which have access rights to network resources and services. Advantageously, the invention simplifies network creation and operation by not requiring the user to have special networking knowledge.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2003
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Meinolf Blawat, Dietmar Hepper, Stefan Kubsch, Wolfgang Klausberger, Dirk Adolph
  • Patent number: 7127428
    Abstract: An operator of a network (20) dynamically establishes a business relationship with a Billing Agent (26) to enable the network operator to receive reimbursement for access charges incurred by one or more users (121, 122 and 123). To establish such a relationship, the network operator first opens a communications channel to the Billing Agent after which the network operator and Billing Agent verify each other. Following verification, the network operator communicates proposed business terms and conditions, including access charges, to the Billing Agent. In response, the Billing Agent sends to the network operator an acceptance of business terms acceptable to the Billing Agent. After reaching agreement on the terms and conditions, the Billing Agent and network operator will each digitally acknowledge a formal agreement that embodies the agreed upon terms.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2002
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Junbiao Zhang, Kumar Ramaswamy, Charles Chaunming Wang, Sachin Satish Mody
  • Patent number: 7126645
    Abstract: The invention teaches a method, means and apparatus for clamping a back porch interval of a video signal including clamping a sync-tip level of said video signal to a variable reference voltage, comparing a back-porch voltage level of the sync-tip clamped video signal to a predetermined reference voltage, generating an error signal representative of the difference between the back-porch voltage level and the predetermined reference voltage, and adjusting the variable reference voltage in response to the error signal such that the error signal is minimized.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 21, 2001
    Date of Patent: October 24, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventor: Ronald Thomas Keen
  • Patent number: 7095630
    Abstract: A power supply includes a supply inductor and a first capacitor coupled to form a resonant circuit to generate a resonant waveform in a resonant operation, during a first portion of an operation cycle of the power supply. A charge storage element develops an output voltage to energize a load. A rectifier is coupled to the charge storage element and to the resonant circuit and is responsive to the resonant waveform for applying the output voltage back to the resonant circuit to interrupt the resonant operation, at an end time of the operation cycle first portion, when the resonant waveform produces a first change of state in the rectifier. A first sensor senses when the first change of state in the rectifier occurs. A source of a supply current is coupled to the rectifier and rectified in the rectifier to produce a rectified current that is coupled to the charge storage element to replenish a charge therein, during a second portion of the operation cycle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 22, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventor: Rudolf Weber
  • Patent number: 7092443
    Abstract: The device is characterized in that it comprises means for preventing the “skipped macroblock” mode of coding of a macroblock of an image of P type on the basis of a correlation item measuring the correlation of this macroblock or of the co-located macroblock of the previous I or P image with the co-located macroblock of a next image of B type, in the order of coding.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 7, 2002
    Date of Patent: August 15, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Edouard François, Jean Kypreos, Dominique Thoreau
  • Patent number: 7076432
    Abstract: An apparatus and a method for processing encoded digital audio data, wherein the digital audio data is encoded using one of a plurality of encoding formats. The present invention prevents encoded digital audio data that has been copied onto a particular type of data storage medium having a unique identifier, such as a compactflash memory card, from another one of the particular type of data storage medium from being playable in an audio playback device according to the present invention. In accordance with the present invention, an encoded audio data file is encrypted using a unique identifier associated with the data storage device and a second key, an associated decoder file is encrypted using a first key, and the encrypted data and decoder files are stored onto the data storage device. During playback, a digital signal processor decrypt the audio data file in response to the second key and decrypts the decoder file in response to the first key.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2000
    Date of Patent: July 11, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing S.A.
    Inventors: Sin Hui Cheah, Robert James Dick, Sr., Tibor G. Csicsatka
  • Patent number: 7073116
    Abstract: The power of the respective codes used by the first and second error detection/correction circuitry are such that the coded bit error rate of the first data stream is more closely matched to the coded bit error rate of the second data stream. A hierarchical QAM system allows the transmission of different sources by embedding the relative constellation points. The hierarchical QAM transmitter encodes the first data stream using a code having a first detection/correction power and encodes the second data stream using a code having a second detection/correction power.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2000
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Timothy Forrest Settle, Thomas Peter Krauss, Kumar Ramaswamy
  • Patent number: 7071909
    Abstract: A method for reducing sparkle artifacts in a liquid crystal imager, comprises the steps of: low pass filtering only a first lower brightness level signal component of a video signal; and, slew rate limiting only a second lower brightness level signal component of the video signal having the low pass filtered signal component, the video signal having the low pass filtered and the slew rate limited signal components being less likely to result in sparkle artifacts in the imager. Brightness thresholds for defining the lower brightness level signal components and slew rate limits can be selected in accordance with transitions between lower and higher level gain portions of a gamma table associated with the imager, for example an LCOS imager.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2001
    Date of Patent: July 4, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Donald Henry Willis, John Alan Hague
  • Patent number: 7065010
    Abstract: Method for tracking in an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to an optical recording medium, and corresponding apparatus for reading from and/or writing to an optical recording medium. In order, in an apparatus for reading from and/or writing to an optical recording medium (18), to enable exact counting of the tracks of the optical recording medium (18) crossed by an optical scanning unit (16), it is proposed to derive a signal corresponding to the TZC signal (Tracking ZeroCross) and also a signal corresponding to the MZC signal (Mirror Zero Cross) from the output signal or the output signals (OUT1, OUT2) of a phase comparator (1) provided for tracking in accordance with the so-called differential phase detection method.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2001
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Christian Büchler, Marten Kabutz
  • Patent number: 7064478
    Abstract: The invention is a color cathode-ray tube having a rectangular front face connected to a funnel shaped rear part, a neck connected to the rear part and having an electron gun therein, the gun is used to generate beams intended to scan the front face under the influence of a deflection device placed on the neck of the tube. The deflection device comprising correction magnets placed on the periphery of the device in locations closest to the front face and a magnetic screen within the tube having an opening for passage of the electron beams, wherein the opening has notches in its periphery. The notches are arranged so as to face at least one pair of correction magnets.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Nacerdine Azzi, Céline Cossu, Mohamed Massaoudi, Sébastien Volatier
  • Patent number: 7064794
    Abstract: A method for dynamic contrast improvement of video data includes the steps of analyzing a portion of a video frame, and forcing a start of DCI transfer function computations in response to an end of the analysis of the portion of the video frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 28, 2002
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Paul Dean Filliman, Thomas Edward Horlander
  • Patent number: 7061678
    Abstract: The present invention is a stereoscopic display device including a transmissive image reproducing element, two light sources, an optical apparatus to direct the light emitted by one light source towards the right eye and to direct the light emitted by the other light source towards the left eye, and control means for displaying alternately an image for the right eye and an image for the left eye on the image reproducing element, and for activating the source emitting light for the right eye only when the image for the right eye is displayed and for activating the source emitting light for the left eye only when the displayed image is for the left eye. The optical apparatus is a mirror apparatus providing either a converging beam or a parallel beam.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 10, 1999
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventor: Yoshiharu Chikazawa
  • Patent number: 7054361
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for providing control signals, comprising a processor coupled to a memory, for generating a signal sequence. The processor encodes the signal sequence into a plurality of symbols using a 5 pulse position modulated (5 PPM) scheme. Advantageously, the last position of each symbol encoded under the 5 PPM scheme is set to a low bit. The symbol sequence represents a signaling protocol having a payload portion and a header portion, wherein the header portion comprises a plurality of fields for defining the payload portion. The payload portion indicates keyboard characters or coordinates for a pointing device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 31, 2000
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Kurt William Otte, Barry Weber, Steven Charles Rhoads
  • Patent number: 7053978
    Abstract: An apparatus and method for analog optical sound track playback includes a transport device for transporting a film including an analog optical sound track and audio representative envelope. A scanner forms a display image signal representative of the analog optical sound track with the audio representative envelope. An alignment device aligns the scanner such that only half of the analog optical sound track with the audio representative envelope form the display image signal and substantially fill a width of the scanner. A processor processes the image signal representing only half of the analog optical sound track and the audio representative envelope and forms therefrom an audio output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2006
    Assignee: Technicolor Inc.
    Inventors: Jaime Arturo Valenzuela, Vincent Richard Williams
  • Patent number: 7050142
    Abstract: An apparatus for playback of an analog optical sound track includes a transport for transporting a film including an analog optical sound track. A scanner generates an image signal of only the analog optical sound track. An alignment device aligns the scanner such that the image signal of the analog optical sound track substantially fills a width of the scanner. A processor processes the image signal to form an audio output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2006
    Assignee: Technicolor Inc.
    Inventors: Jaime Arturo Valenzuela, Vincent Richard Williams
  • Patent number: 7050214
    Abstract: The invention relates to an optical compensation element comprising a first transparent surface on which a transparent electrode is arranged; a second transparent surface on which a plurality of transparent main electrodes are arranged, several of which being respectively connected to control electrodes via a transverse electrode; and a material having a refractive index which changes according to the voltage applied, said material being arranged between the first and second transparent surfaces. The aim of the invention is to improve said compensation element. To this end, each main electrode is connected to a transverse electrode at a precise location.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Mathias Hain, Somakanthan Somalingam, Theo Tschudi
  • Patent number: 7047313
    Abstract: A system enables a bi-directional communication device such as a modem to facilitate local communication between the modem and an attached PC as well as to enable the PC to conduct concurrent Internet and local communication. A bi-directional communication system employs a method for seamlessly communicating packetized data between different networks using hierarchical layers of communication protocols (e.g. including Internet Protocol (IP) and Media Access Control (MAC) layers). The method involves comparing a received IP packet destination address in a first protocol layer with a predetermined IP address to determine if there is an address match. Upon such an address match, a payload of the received IP packet is redirected from an Internet network to a local network (e.g. an Ethernet, HPNA or USB network) by substituting a second protocol layer address for a received second protocol layer address (e.g. a MAC address). In another feature, a second Application (e.g.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 23, 2000
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2006
    Assignee: Thomas Licensing
    Inventor: Keith Robert Broerman
  • Patent number: D525964
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2003
    Date of Patent: August 1, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing S.A.
    Inventors: Thomas John Koller, Tok Doun, Matthew Albert Ivey
  • Patent number: D532324
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 9, 2005
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2006
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Lex Neal Bayer, Steven Porter Hotelling