Audiostrobe: who owns it?

[dbit]

I'm curious, who's the patent/registration holder for audiostrobe technology?

[Robert Austin]

Greetings, dbit! Andrzej Slawinski came up with the idea, filed the patent, and registered the "AudioStrobe" trademarks here and in other countries. His patent was not granted, however, as their patent authorities determined that it was a color organ and therefore not sufficiently unique to be awarded patent protection. At least two other companies have long used some version of this encoding strategy, as well. This 'strobe' concept is a very useful one for creating two channel strobe-lit sessions, and there are multiple software tools on the market to create your own sessions, such as those from Transparent Corporation's NeuroProgrammer 3 and the powerful Mind Workstation.

Hope this helps!

-Robert

[dbit]

Thanks Robert! So is there any licensing involved when companies list 'audiostrobe decoder' as a feature?

[neuroasis]

Just if you use the AudioStrobe logo on marketing materials is my understanding. The logo is a registered trademark. I'm curious why you ask?

[dbit]

I want to develop some audiostrobe programs at some point, as I'm an electronic musician with some ambient and experimental music background, and just became curious as to how the standard came about, just how standard it is, and what the ownership situation of the technology was, if any. I noticed multiple manufacturers using the name, and was curious if it was licensed or open.

[Robert Austin]

It does seem that some Light/Sound manufacturers are using 'AudioStrobe' generically, like 'Xerox' was used generically for photocopies a couple decades ago. The logo for "AudioStrobe" is trademarked, so if you use the term you need to credit it in your copy as being a registered trademark of AudioStrobe GMBH. But the technology itself is not protected intellectual property... anyone can use it, including you. :-) It's a neat name and idea in my opinion, and one we've supported since it's inception nearly 20 years ago.

[synaesthesia]

Dbit , If you delve into the Audiostrobe website you can find the agreement forms and conditions to be be able to display the official Audiostrobe LOGO on any documentation and website , CD's etc. The fees are pretty minimal.

The official Audiostrobe Designer software , which allows you to zoom right into your audio file and literally draw in and time AS events down to millisecond precision has now been reduced from 399 Euro to 99 Euro so all the tools are now pretty affordable to anyone that wants them . The control over AS functions is more thorough than the Transparent products ( for example being able to draw in phase between L/R channel ) Theres a demo there if you haven't tried it.