Patents by Inventor Frank Andre Schaffa

Frank Andre Schaffa has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5973685
    Abstract: A system architecture enables the distribution, to users connected to a digital broadcast medium, of supplementary information, which is presented and accessed in the context of the viewing of a video program. This ancillary, or "follow-up" information (FUI) is embedded in the same transport stream (digital multimedia broadcast stream) as the digital video and audio content. The FUI may take the form of video, audio or text. Alternatively, the transport stream may carry pointers to follow-up information (PFUI) instead of the information itself. In the latter case, the pointers are saved and used subsequently in the selection of FUI from a channel which carries data exclusively. In the former case, the user selects the FUI (supplementary information) which is to be extracted from the broadcast stream as it is transmitted.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 1997
    Date of Patent: October 26, 1999
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventors: Frank Andre Schaffa, David Israel Seidman, Ahmed Nasr-El-Din Tantawy