Patents by Inventor Robert Hammond

Robert Hammond 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).

  • Publication number: 20200412330
    Abstract: There is disclosed acoustic resonators and filter devices. An acoustic resonator includes a substrate having a surface and a Z-cut piezoelectric plate having parallel front and back surfaces, the back surface attached to the surface of the substrate except for a portion of the piezoelectric plate forming a diaphragm that spans a cavity in the substrate. An interdigital transducer (IDT) is formed on the front surface of the single-crystal piezoelectric plate such that interleaved fingers of the IDT are disposed on the diaphragm. The IDT is configured to excite a primary acoustic mode in the diaphragm in response to a radio frequency signal applied to the IDT. A thickness of the interleaved fingers of the IDT is greater than or equal to 0.85 times a thickness of the diaphragm.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 7, 2020
    Publication date: December 31, 2020
    Inventors: Bryant Garcia, Robert Hammond, Patrick Turner, Neal Fenzi, Viktor Plesski, Ventsislav Yantchev
  • Patent number: 10873780
    Abstract: A system and method for effectuating fast channel change in an adaptive streaming environment. A plurality of adjacent channels may be predicted relative to a current streaming channel engaged by a client device. Upon prioritizing the adjacent channels, the client device may be configured to pre-fetch metadata and initialization information for a subset of the prioritized adjacent channels based on bandwidth conditions, video player buffer status, etc. When a channel is changed, the client device is operative to use the pre-fetched data to quickly obtain encoded media content at a select bitrate for rendering.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 28, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 22, 2020
    Assignee: ERICSSON AB
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Charles Hammett Dasher, Mark Robertson, Robert Hammond Forsman, Jennifer Ann Reynolds
  • Patent number: 10868512
    Abstract: There is disclosed acoustic resonators and filter devices. An acoustic resonator includes a substrate having a surface and a Z-cut lithium niobate piezoelectric plate having parallel front and back surfaces, the back surface attached to the surface of the substrate except for a portion of the piezoelectric plate forming a diaphragm that spans a cavity in the substrate. An interdigital transducer (IDT) is formed on the front surface of the single-crystal piezoelectric plate such that interleaved fingers of the IDT are disposed on the diaphragm. The IDT is configured to excite a primary acoustic mode in the diaphragm in response to a radio frequency signal applied to the IDT. A thickness of the interleaved fingers of the IDT is greater than or equal to 0.85 times a thickness of the piezoelectric plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 15, 2020
    Assignee: Resonant Inc.
    Inventors: Bryant Garcia, Robert Hammond, Patrick Turner, Neal Fenzi, Viktor Plesski, Ventsislav Yantchev
  • Publication number: 20200382098
    Abstract: There is disclosed acoustic resonators and filter devices. An acoustic resonator includes a substrate having a surface and a Z-cut piezoelectric plate having parallel front and back surfaces, the back surface attached to the surface of the substrate except for a portion of the piezoelectric plate forming a diaphragm that spans a cavity in the substrate. An interdigital transducer (IDT) is formed on the front surface of the single-crystal piezoelectric plate such that interleaved fingers of the IDT are disposed on the diaphragm. The IDT is configured to excite a primary acoustic mode in the diaphragm in response to a radio frequency signal applied to the IDT. A thickness of the interleaved fingers of the IDT is greater than or equal to 0.85 times a thickness of the diaphragm.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 18, 2020
    Publication date: December 3, 2020
    Inventors: Bryant Garcia, Robert Hammond, Patrick Turner, Neal Fenzi, Viktor Plesski, Ventsislav Yantchev
  • Patent number: 10841353
    Abstract: A system and method for optimizing defragmentation of content in a content delivery network (CDN). In an example, a manifest available to the content delivery node with respect to a particular content as well as segment files stored in a database cache of the content delivery node are analyzed to determine if any segment files referenced by the manifest are absent from the database cache. If so, one or more delivery rules associated with the content delivery node based on historical ABR asset delivery patterns may be applied to determine representations of the absent segment files that satisfy the one or more delivery rules. After determining compliant representations of the absent segment files, they may be pulled from another content delivery node of the CDN (e.g., a parent node or an edge server node).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 1, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: ERICSSON AB
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Jennifer Ann Reynolds
  • Patent number: 10841662
    Abstract: A system and method for inserting secondary content, e.g., advertisement content, graphics, images, etc., in a 360-degree immersive video environment. When a request is received from a client device for playing a video asset, a plurality of video tiles of the video asset are selected to be assembled as a video frame for delivery to the client device. A portion of the video tiles are identified that can be replaced with a corresponding set of advertisement content tiles, e.g., based on gaze vector information and/or a tile metadata specification containing advertisement insertion availability timing information with respect to each of the tiles of the video frame. After replacing the portion of the identified video tiles, the corresponding set of advertisement content tiles and remaining video tiles are assembled into the video frame including the advertisement content tiles at select locations, which is transmitted to the client device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: November 17, 2020
    Assignee: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Vishal Changrani
  • Publication number: 20200344457
    Abstract: A system and method for providing quality control in immersive video during pausing of a video streaming session. In one embodiment, a paused video frame may comprise a plurality of mixed quality video tiles depending on user gaze vector information. Under pause control, the video quality of all tiles of the paused video frame is equalized such that it is of same value for all the video tiles, which may be the video quality of the tiles presented in a viewport of the client device. The paused video frame having the same quality tiles throughout is used as a replacement video frame, which is presented to the client device player for decoding and displaying instead of the mixed quality video frame while the streaming session is paused.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 10, 2020
    Publication date: October 29, 2020
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Patent number: 10812775
    Abstract: A system and method for providing immersive video based on gaze vector information. A gaze vector is obtained from a client device operating to display a 360° immersive video asset to a user, wherein each video frame comprises an array of tiles projected on a 3-dimensional (3D) display environment viewed by the user in which the user is immersed, the gaze vector defining a gaze direction in the 3D display environment where the user is viewing (i.e., a viewport) at any particular time. Angular separations between the viewport and remaining portions of the video frame are used in selecting different video qualities of the 360° immersive video asset such that the viewport comprises a higher video quality than the remaining portions when displayed by the client device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 16, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 20, 2020
    Assignee: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Patent number: 10757389
    Abstract: A system and method for providing quality control in 360° immersive video during pausing of a video streaming session. In one embodiment, a paused video frame may comprise a plurality of mixed quality video tiles depending on user gaze vector information. Under pause control, the video quality of all tiles of the tiled video frame is equalized to a highest video quality corresponding to the quality of the tiles presented in a viewport. A replacement video frame is generated having tiles with the same equalized video quality throughout the full 360° immersive video frame, which is presented to the client device player for decoding and displaying instead of the mixed quality video frame while the streaming session is paused.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 2018
    Date of Patent: August 25, 2020
    Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Publication number: 20200228091
    Abstract: There is disclosed acoustic resonators and filter devices. An acoustic resonator includes a substrate having a surface and a Z-cut lithium niobate piezoelectric plate having parallel front and back surfaces, the back surface attached to the surface of the substrate except for a portion of the piezoelectric plate forming a diaphragm that spans a cavity in the substrate. An interdigital transducer (IDT) is formed on the front surface of the single-crystal piezoelectric plate such that interleaved fingers of the IDT are disposed on the diaphragm. The IDT is configured to excite a primary acoustic mode in the diaphragm in response to a radio frequency signal applied to the IDT. A thickness of the interleaved fingers of the IDT is greater than or equal to 0.85 times a thickness of the piezoelectric plate.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 25, 2020
    Publication date: July 16, 2020
    Inventors: Bryant Garcia, Robert Hammond, Patrick Turner, Neal Fenzi, Viktor Plesski, Ventsislav Yantchev
  • Publication number: 20200162776
    Abstract: A system and method for providing bitrate control for delivering media content to a plurality of virtual display (VD) screens presented in a virtual reality (VR) environment effectuated by a VR device of a subscriber based on detecting a movement in a point of view with respect the VD screens' placement within the VR environment, wherein each VD screen is configured to receive a media content channel. Responsive to detecting the movement, angular distance of each of the VD screens relative to a reference axis is computed. Weights to each of the media content channels may be assigned or updated based on the angular distance of the corresponding VD screens relative to the reference axis. Media content channels on the VD screens outside the subscriber's field of view may be time-shifted.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2019
    Publication date: May 21, 2020
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Jennifer Ann Reynolds, Charles Hammett Dasher
  • Patent number: 10652165
    Abstract: A method of managing bandwidth allocation across a video pipe that delivers both streaming adaptive bitrate (ABR) content and progressive download ABR content includes receiving a designation of a congestion boundary within a video pipe, the congestion boundary designating a first percentage of the video pipe that is to be used for streaming ABR content when congestion exists on both sides of the congestion boundary, wherein a remaining percentage of the video pipe is to be used for progressive download ABR; allocating bandwidth for streaming ABR content, wherein the gateway device can allocate for streaming content only that portion of the remaining percentage of bandwidth that is not requested for progressive download content; and allocating bandwidth for progressive download content, wherein the gateway device can allocate for progressive download content only that portion of the first percentage of bandwidth that is not requested for streaming content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2017
    Date of Patent: May 12, 2020
    Assignee: ERICSSON AB
    Inventors: Charles Hammett Dasher, Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Jennifer Ann Reynolds
  • Patent number: 10637438
    Abstract: There is disclosed acoustic resonators and filter devices. An acoustic resonator includes a substrate having a surface and a single-crystal piezoelectric plate having parallel front and back surfaces, the back surface attached to the surface of the substrate except for a portion of the piezoelectric plate forming a diaphragm that spans a cavity in the substrate. An interdigital transducer (IDT) is formed on the front surface of the single-crystal piezoelectric plate such that interleaved fingers of the IDT are disposed on the diaphragm. The IDT is configured to excite a primary acoustic mode in the diaphragm in response to a radio frequency signal applied to the IDT. A thickness of the interleaved fingers of the IDT is greater than or equal to 0.85 times a thickness of the piezoelectric plate.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 23, 2019
    Date of Patent: April 28, 2020
    Assignee: Resonant Inc.
    Inventors: Bryant Garcia, Robert Hammond, Patrick Turner, Neal Fenzi, Viktor Plesski, Ventsislav Yantchev
  • Patent number: 10623736
    Abstract: A tile selection and bandwidth optimization scheme for effectuating optimized 360° immersive video viewing experience. Stream manifest files describing characteristics of tile groupings per frame for each tile-encoded bitstream corresponding to a particular one of a plurality of bitrate representations of a media input stream are retrieved. Each bitrate representation is encoded having a separate video quality that is related to a corresponding QP value used for the bitrate representation. Each frame of a tile-encoded bitstream comprises an array of tiles, with a plurality of frames forming a GOP structure of the tile-encoded bitstream.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2018
    Date of Patent: April 14, 2020
    Assignee: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Publication number: 20200107003
    Abstract: A system and method for providing quality control in 360° immersive video during pausing of a video streaming session. In one embodiment, a paused video frame may comprise a plurality of mixed quality video tiles depending on user gaze vector information. Under pause control, the video quality of all tiles of the tiled video frame is equalized to a highest video quality corresponding to the quality of the tiles presented in a viewport. A replacement video frame is generated having tiles with the same equalized video quality throughout the full 360° immersive video frame, which is presented to the client device player for decoding and displaying instead of the mixed quality video frame while the streaming session is paused.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 1, 2018
    Publication date: April 2, 2020
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Patent number: 10567780
    Abstract: A system and method for effectuating optimized 360° immersive video viewing experience. A media input stream is coded into a plurality of phase-encoded bitstreams in multiple bitrate representations with varying video qualities. Each phase-encoded bitstream that belongs to a particular bitrate representation includes a number (N) of frames with a specific GOP structure having a GOP size (p), wherein the plurality of phase-encoded bitstreams equals the GOP size. For each pth phase-encoded bitstream, N frames are encoded as follows: at least a first frame is encoded as an I-frame; and a frame at a frame position i, for 2?i?N, that satisfies {i Mod (GOP size)}=p is encoded as an X-frame that has a slice header of a P-frame and includes blocks of only intra-coded data, otherwise, that frame is encoded as a P-frame having blocks of predictive-coded data (P-blocks) with a P-slice header.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2018
    Date of Patent: February 18, 2020
    Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen, Rickard Sjöberg
  • Publication number: 20200037043
    Abstract: A system and method for inserting secondary content, e.g., advertisement content, graphics, images, etc., in a 360-degree immersive video environment. When a request is received from a client device for playing a video asset, a plurality of video tiles of the video asset are selected to be assembled as a video frame for delivery to the client device. A portion of the video tiles are identified that can be replaced with a corresponding set of advertisement content tiles, e.g., based on gaze vector information and/or a tile metadata specification containing advertisement insertion availability timing information with respect to each of the tiles of the video frame. After replacing the portion of the identified video tiles, the corresponding set of advertisement content tiles and remaining video tiles are assembled into the video frame including the advertisement content tiles at select locations, which is transmitted to the client device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 27, 2018
    Publication date: January 30, 2020
    Applicant: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET L M ERICSSON (PUBL)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Vishal Changrani
  • Publication number: 20200014903
    Abstract: A system and method for providing immersive video based on gaze vector information. A gaze vector is obtained from a client device operating to display a 360° immersive video asset to a user, wherein each video frame comprises an array of tiles projected on a 3-dimensional (3D) display environment viewed by the user in which the user is immersed, the gaze vector defining a gaze direction in the 3D display environment where the user is viewing (i.e., a viewport) at any particular time. Angular separations between the viewport and remaining portions of the video frame are used in selecting different video qualities of the 360° immersive video asset such that the viewport comprises a higher video quality than the remaining portions when displayed by the client device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 16, 2019
    Publication date: January 9, 2020
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Patent number: 10523914
    Abstract: A system and method for providing multisession 360° immersive video services in a network portion having a dedicated bandwidth capacity. In one embodiment, a bandwidth optimization method is operative to determine respective bandwidth allocations for the video sessions responsive to receiving an indication of the dedicated bandwidth capacity, a plurality of weights corresponding to the video sessions and a plurality of bitrate caps configured for the video sessions. Respective bandwidth allocations may be provided to a tile selection process configured to select tiles for a corresponding video session on a frame-by-frame basis from a plurality of tile-encoded bitrate representations of a media input stream associated with the video session, wherein each tile-encoded bitrate representation is provided with a separate video quality.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Sarel Cohen
  • Patent number: 10523451
    Abstract: A system, apparatus, and method for controlling data usage at a customer premises. A gateway configured as a single point of entry receives all data entering the premises. All data usage by client devices within the premises is monitored. A DataCap Management Unit adjusts a premises bandwidth cap throughout a billing cycle to prevent the data usage from exceeding a data cap before the billing cycle ends.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 31, 2019
    Assignee: TELEFONAKTIEBOLAGET LM ERICSSON (PUBL)
    Inventors: Chris Phillips, Robert Hammond Forsman, Jennifer Ann Reynolds, Vishal Changrani