{
  "patent_number": "US 9098533",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How Voice Commands Help Computers Find Objects in Pictures and Videos",
  "original_title": "Voice directed context sensitive visual search",
  "summary": "A method for using voice commands to tell a computer which object in a photo or video you want to search for, allowing it to automatically isolate that object and perform a visual search.",
  "what_it_does": "This patent describes a system that bridges the gap between what you say and what you see on a screen. When you point at an object on a display and ask a question about it, the system uses your voice query to identify the specific object within the image or video frame. It then intelligently selects a specific edge-detection algorithm—a mathematical tool to find the boundaries of shapes—tailored to that specific object or context. Finally, it crops that object out of the original image and uses it to perform a 'reverse visual search' to find more information, showing you the results directly on your screen.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover general voice-to-text transcription that is not linked to visual object extraction.",
    "Does not cover visual searches that rely solely on manual user selection or cropping without voice input.",
    "Does not cover object detection methods that use a single, fixed edge-detection algorithm for all image types."
  ],
  "filed": "2011-10-03",
  "granted": "2015-08-04",
  "expires": null,
  "status": "active",
  "holder": "Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/microsoft-technology-licensing-llc",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "Emmanuel John Athans",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/emmanuel-john-athans"
    },
    {
      "name": "Monty Lee Hammontree",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/monty-lee-hammontree"
    },
    {
      "name": "Vikram Bapat",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/vikram-bapat"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 4,
  "tags": [
    "consumer_electronics",
    "software",
    "ai_ml"
  ],
  "abstract": "Various technologies described herein pertain to voice directed context sensitive visual searching. Visual content can be rendered on a display, and a voice directed query related to the visual content can be received. Contextual information related to the visual content can also be identified. Moreover, a search word recognized from the voice directed query and/or the contextual information can be used to detect an object from the visual content, where the object can be a part of the visual content. Further, a search can be performed using the object detected from the visual content, and a result of the search can be rendered on the display.",
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/9098533/amazon-kinesis",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/9098533/amazon-kinesis/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US9098533",
  "relatedPatents": []
}