NEW YORK: The European Patent Office has granted a broad patent to a US company for its methods of communication and technology that are the bases of much of the emerging interactive television, e-learning, and "broadcast online" industries. Myriad Telecom, Inc. of Syracuse, New York claims ownership of "Interpersonal Television," "Interpersonal Computing," and more.
Myriad is the owner of the patents developed by its founder and president Rick Guy relating to interactive television, e-learning, and broadband online services. Since the late 1990s some of the world's leading interactive television companies like Microsoft, BSkyB, Fantastic Corporation, Open TV, and others have been spending billions of dollars on the basic building block technologies of a new "converged" interactive television and broadband online industry.
According to Guy, the fundamental intellectual property behind the variety of television and broadcast platforms for delivering multimedia content belongs to Myriad. Myriad's claims include techniques for using high bandwidth signals like television signals to send all kinds of multimedia information in an interactive fashion. High speed online services and Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) platforms like Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) are based in large part upon the company's intellectual property, according to Guy.
He said, "All the exciting interactive possibilities presented by DVB and the convergence of television and the Internet depend upon our core methods of communication and related intellectual property," This is only the first of our European Patents and one of many that will be issued worldwide as we continue to build our IP portfolio while also creating the best possible applications in the fields of education, edutainment, and communication." He went on to say that the company's pending patents cover interactive TV devices, software, and all related basic technologies.
The use of basic interactive television and broadcast online methods for distance learning and "Interpersonal Computing" are the focus of Myriad's first product "WorldClass." WorldClass is a combination of computers, television, and networking technologies that together provide a whole new medium for learning and teleconferencing that is something more than the sum of its parts. Students and their professors can literally engage in all the same human interactions they do when together in person. In fact, they can do some things even better. They see and hear each other and otherwise interact without any limitations normally encountered on typical Internet systems.
Also under development are a suite of interactive TV products that will be available to broadcasters. The "iTV Toolbox" will provide broadcasters with a whole array of interactive features like chat, chalk, polling, interactive advertising, games, and more. Guy said that Myriad intends to offer licensing of its intellectual property to selected partners who have expressed interest in their Powered by WIT (WorldClass Interactive Technology) Programme. He said the iTV Toolbox and other Myriad products will enable the development of whole new markets based on what he called the interpersonal computer or iPC and Interpersonal Television (iTV).
