{
  "patent_number": "US 12335718",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How to Mix Sound for Different Speaker Setups",
  "original_title": "System and method for adaptive audio signal generation, coding and rendering",
  "summary": "This patent describes a system for mixing and playing back audio, allowing sound engineers to precisely control where sounds appear in a room, even preventing sounds from playing through specific speakers.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent covers a system that takes many separate audio tracks, called monophonic audio streams, and mixes them together. Some tracks are 'object-based,' meaning they have specific 3D locations in a virtual space, like a car driving across the screen. Other tracks are 'channel-based,' which are assigned to specific speakers, like the front left or right. The system uses metadata, which is like extra information, to tell a playback device exactly where each sound should come from. Crucially, for object-based sounds, this metadata can also specify if a sound is *not* allowed to play through certain speakers. This lets sound designers ensure a specific effect, like a whisper, doesn't blast from a rear speaker, maintaining the intended immersive experience for the listener in any room setup.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Audio systems that only use channel-based audio without any object-based audio elements.",
    "Audio systems that do not use metadata to define playback locations for audio streams.",
    "Audio systems that do not allow for prohibiting specific speaker outputs for object-based audio.",
    "Audio systems that do not combine multiple monophonic audio streams into a single bitstream.",
    "Audio systems that only support 2D spatial audio rather than 3D."
  ],
  "filed": "2024-04-12",
  "granted": "2025-06-17",
  "expires": "2044-04-12",
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "Dolby Laboratories Licensing",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/dolby-laboratories-licensing",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Christophe Chabanne",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/christophe-chabanne"
    },
    {
      "name": "Nicolas R. Tsingos",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/nicolas-r-tsingos"
    },
    {
      "name": "Charles Q. Robinson",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/charles-q-robinson"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 0,
  "tags": [
    "consumer_electronics",
    "software",
    "telecommunications"
  ],
  "abstract": "Embodiments are described for an adaptive audio system that processes audio data comprising a number of independent monophonic audio streams. One or more of the streams has associated with it metadata that specifies whether the stream is a channel-based or object-based stream. Channel-based streams have rendering information encoded by means of channel name; and the object-based streams have location information encoded through location expressions encoded in the associated metadata. A codec packages the independent audio streams into a single serial bitstream that contains all of the audio data. This configuration allows for the sound to be rendered according to an allocentric frame of reference, in which the rendering location of a sound is based on the characteristics of the playback environment (e.g., room size, shape, etc.) to correspond to the mixer's intent. The object position metadata contains the appropriate allocentric frame of reference information required to play the sound correctly using the available speaker positions in a room that is set up to play the adaptive audio content.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/12335718/system-and-method-for-adaptive-audio-signal-generation-coding-and-rendering",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/12335718/system-and-method-for-adaptive-audio-signal-generation-coding-and-rendering/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US12335718",
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      "countryCode": "US",
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    },
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  ]
}