Patents on Physical Modeling of instruments, have they expired?

[kv331]

Hi all,

From time to time, I see people releasing physically modeled instruments, mostly made with SynthEdit and such. I remember that Yamaha and Stanford University have the patents for most of the PM algorithms developed at Stanford CCRMA. They also have a web site for those techologies: http://www.sondiusxg.com/

I wonder if any of those instruments are based on those patented algorithms? or slightly modified versions of them? The expiration of patents is I believe 17 years so maybe we can use the algorithms that have expired, right?

[kv331]

Wow, no one knows/cares Anyhow just watch out the ones that are expiring!

[Tony Ostinato]

i do wish i knew.

[duncanparsons]

I had read the post, but didn't have anything of merit to say, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested

[deraudrl]

I'll assume you've already done a search at http://patft.uspto.gov/, yes?

(I'm old enough that I still flinch when I see the words "patent" and "algorithm" in the same sentence.)

[Urs]

Just use comb filters instead of waveguides. They look, sound and feel identical, but comb filters have existed prior to waveguides.

[mystran]

Just use comb filters instead of waveguides. They look, sound and feel identical, but comb filters have existed prior to waveguides.

Hehe. That's kinda the problem with most of these so called "software patents": most of the time whether it's novel or not depends mostly on what you call it.

[MadBrain]

Hmmm, didn't Sondius get bought, made a model for a racing game (might have been the one where they had a good model, but the speed was directly wired to whether the space bar was pressed instead of the speed so it sounded awful), and then go under? Although I guess someone might be keeping it "alive" because of the extent of it's patent portfolio. That, or it was bought by Yamaha and/or Stanford. Probably something just enough to keep the stupid patent minefield active.

[kv331]

Hmmm, didn't Sondius get bought, made a model for a racing game (might have been the one where they had a good model, but the speed was directly wired to whether the space bar was pressed instead of the speed so it sounded awful), and then go under? Although I guess someone might be keeping it "alive" because of the extent of it's patent portfolio. That, or it was bought by Yamaha and/or Stanford. Probably something just enough to keep the stupid patent minefield active.

I believe you're talking about "Staccato Systems", was bought by analog devices or something like that?

[MadBrain]

Hmmm, didn't Sondius get bought, made a model for a racing game (might have been the one where they had a good model, but the speed was directly wired to whether the space bar was pressed instead of the speed so it sounded awful), and then go under? Although I guess someone might be keeping it "alive" because of the extent of it's patent portfolio. That, or it was bought by Yamaha and/or Stanford. Probably something just enough to keep the stupid patent minefield active.

I believe you're talking about "Staccato Systems", was bought by analog devices or something like that?

I don't know, I'm just hypotethizing on who holds the patents now. From what I can tell, you're probably right, and they're probably some part of this by now. I can't tell the chances of being sued, but it seems low to me.

Another potential patent holder is Yamaha.

From what I can tell, the terms of patents issued in 1992 or prior are over. This includes the waveguide synthesis patent I think. Commuted and multi-dimensional waveguides should expire next year. They extended patent terms in 1994 so a patent filed in 1995 won't expire until 2015 (this applies to the Perry Cook waveguide speech synthesis algo, commuted piano synthesis algo, legato waveguide, and audio-rate delay length modulation stuff).