If you’re a viewer of the long-running series Shark Tank, you’ll know that the question, “Do you have a patent?” is a very important one for investors, and for eventual clients using the unique product.
For ENCO Systems, the answer is “yes” with respect to a patent that specifically applies to providing automated captioning by using speech-to-text.
The U.S. patent, “Method and System for Providing Automated Captioning for AV Signals,” expands ENCO’s intellectual property for captioning technology and methods that help broadcasters and professional AV customers, including those in corporate, education, government and venues, automate and accelerate speech-to-text translation to deliver open or closed captions.
The patent specifically relates to ENCO’s enCaption series of automated captioning solutions.
Helping broadcasters and content producers comply with expanding regulatory requirements, while serving the needs of hearing-impaired audiences, ENCO’s software-defined enCaption solutions provide captioning for live and recorded content in near-real-time. Advances that correlate with ENCO’s new patent are designed to improve accuracy of enCaption’s speech-to-text engine.
The innovation behind the patent includes a method that separates an audio signal from a combined AV signal, and converts the audio signal to text data. The original AV signal is then encoded with the converted text data to produce, record and display a captioned AV signal.
The patent also covers automatic translation of spoken words of a first language into a second language, with the translated words included in the captioning information.
“This patent protects the investment of both ENCO and our global customers for our market-leading automated captioning technology in broadcast and AV,” said company president Ken Frommert. “It also establishes a strong foundation for continued innovation around our enCaption brand as we further enhance speed and precision around automated speech-to-text conversion.”
