Microsoft Patents the Groove?

[Tami]

On July 5, 2005 the US Patent office accepted a patent from Microsoft which essentially gives them ownership of musical understanding. So next time you groove, make sure you're not infringing copyright /bigwink.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />

[quote]System and methods for training a trainee to classify fundamental properties of media entities

Abstract

A system and methods are provided for training a trainee to analyze media, such as music, in order to recognize and assess the fundamental properties of any piece of media, such as a song or a segment of a song. The process includes an initial tutorial and a double grooving process. The tutorial phase exposes the trainee to a canonical set of classifications and then exposes the trainee to certain definitive song examples for each classification level of fundamental properties. The double grooving phase leverages the skills of the experts that defined the canonical set of classification terms to ensure that new listeners, even though exposed to the tutorial, appropriately recognize all fundamental musical properties. Thus, for specific song examples, a new listener matches results with the system experts within a degree of tolerance. When a high enough degree of cross-listening consensus is reached, the new listener becomes a groover and can classify new songs or segments of songs[/quote]

[url="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,913,466.WKU.&OS=PN/6,913,466&RS=PN/6,913,466"]The Full Patent[/url]