The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 05, 2009
Filed:
Jan. 16, 2003
Carlton J. Sparrell, Marblehead, MA (US);
Alexander D. Vasilevsky, Westford, MA (US);
Chester Ruszczyk, Acton, MA (US);
Jinyou Zhang, Woburn, MA (US);
Carlton J. Sparrell, Marblehead, MA (US);
Alexander D. Vasilevsky, Westford, MA (US);
Chester Ruszczyk, Acton, MA (US);
Jinyou Zhang, Woburn, MA (US);
Ucentric Systems, Inc., Maynard, MA (US);
Abstract
A centralized interactive TV recording and reproduction system linking several 'Quality of Service' (QoS) reproduction and control units (such as television and audio reproduction receivers), as well as high bandwidth non-QoS legacy devices such as PCs, via a Home Area Network (HAN) to a centralized media server, has novel traffic control to prevent non-QoS devices from establishing and maintaining high-bandwidth network connections during the real-time transmission of media (video and/or audio) information from the media server to the QoS devices. In the preferred embodiment, the media server also contains a gateway device for connecting the HAN to a Wide Area Network, Metropolitan Area Network, and/or the Internet, and the media server also receives video and audio signals from sources such as cable, satellite, terrestrial broadcast, etc. The media server also contains a network router. All traffic from non-QoS devices is routed through the media server, and the media server limits the delivery of packets sent from source non-QoS devices to destination non-QoS devices. As a further refinement to prevent interruptions in real-time transmissions of video and audio information to QoS devices, the information can be buffered at the QoS device level.