Sean F Kelly

US Patent:

6423893, Jul 23, 2002

Filed:

Oct 15, 1999

Appl. No.:

09/419667

Inventors:

Christopher Sung - New York NY
Sean Kelly - Seattle WA

Assignee:

Etonal Media, Inc. - New York NY

International Classification:

G09B 1502

US Classification:

84645, 84600, 84609, 84610, 84477 R

Abstract:

A system and method that allows an on-line user of a wide area network to remotely author and publish instructional material for musical instruments for the purposes of dissemination to other on-line users. Authors create solo musical passages pertaining to a specific instrument, accompanying musical arrangements and textual annotations which are stored on a remote server. This information is then dynamically published visually as standard music notation or tablature, and can be heard aurally as either digital audio or by using the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard. The playback of musical examples in this material may be customized, allowing users to change the tempo of the music, to modify the instrument sounds used, or to play subsets of the presented musical examples. Authors can update their music at any time, and since the music is dynamically published, these changes are instantaneously reflected in its published visual and aural forms. All authoring, publishing, and viewing of this material uses temporary applications that operate with a standard Internet browser in conjunction with software that operates on the remote server.

US Patent:

7832003, Nov 9, 2010

Filed:

Apr 28, 2005

Appl. No.:

11/116925

Inventors:

Sean U. Kelly - New York NY, US
Lili Cheng - Bellevue WA, US
Ryszard K. Kott - Redmond WA, US
Richard L. Hughes - Monroe WA, US
William L. Portnoy - Seattle WA, US

Assignee:

Microsoft Corporation - Redmond WA

International Classification:

G06F 7/04
G06F 12/00
G06F 12/14
G06F 13/00
G06F 17/30
G11C 7/00

US Classification:

726 18, 380250

Abstract:

The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates a controlled communication environment which allows a user to participate in a plurality of privacy contexts with other people in a simultaneous manner in an online community. A user can assign or define varying levels of privacy to his/her information or content to control the visibility of such information by others. In particular, a first user can maintain one or more “gardens” or stores of content which may be accessible to at least a subset of the online community. Access to the contents of any one garden can be based on the privacy level of the garden and the privacy level (e. g. , access parameters) granted to the person. The privacy levels and arrangement of content can be hierarchal and/or non-overlapping. Thus, a user can seamlessly communicate with multiple users at the same time regardless of their context or privacy level while maintaining the privacy boundaries of each garden.