Patents by Inventor William P. Birmingham

William P. Birmingham 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).

  • Method and system for extracting melodic patterns in a musical piece and computer-readable storage medium having a program for executing the method
    Patent number: 6747201
    Abstract: A method and system for extracting melodic patterns by first recognizing musical “keywords” or themes. The invention searches for all instances of melodic (intervallic) repetition in a piece (patterns). This process generally uncovers a large number of patterns, many of which are either uninteresting or are only superficially prevalent. Filters reduce the number and/or prevalence of such patterns. Patterns are then rated according to characteristics deemed perceptually significant. The top ranked patterns correspond to important thematic or motivic musical content. The system operates robustly across a broad range of styles, and relies on no metadata on its input, allowing it to independently and efficiently catalog multimedia data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2001
    Date of Patent: June 8, 2004
    Assignee: The Regents of the University of Michigan
    Inventors: William P. Birmingham, Colin J. Meek
  • Method and system for extracting melodic patterns in a musical piece and computer-readable storage medium having a program for executing the method
    Publication number: 20030089216
    Abstract: A method and system for extracting melodic patterns by first recognizing musical “keywords” or themes. The invention searches for all instances of melodic (intervallic) repetition in a piece (patterns). This process generally uncovers a large number of patterns, many of which are either uninteresting or are only superficially prevalent. Filters reduce the number and/or prevalence of such patterns. Patterns are then rated according to characteristics deemed perceptually significant. The top ranked patterns correspond to important thematic or motivic musical content. The system operates robustly across a broad range of styles, and relies on no metadata on its input, allowing it to independently and efficiently catalog multimedia data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 26, 2001
    Publication date: May 15, 2003
    Inventors: William P. Birmingham, Colin J. Meek