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Patents & IP

COMMONTARY’s synchronization technology is covered by two granted U.S. patents, both assigned to MyTeamCalls LLC.

U.S. Patent 10,433,026

Systems and methods for customized live-streaming commentary

Filed February 2017 · Granted October 2019 · Priority February 2016

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U.S. Patent 10,827,231

Systems and methods for customized live-streaming commentary

Filed August 2019 · Granted November 2020 · Priority February 2016

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Inventor: Andrew John Novobilski. Assignee: MyTeamCalls LLC.

What they cover

In the patents’ own terms: substituting or augmenting portions of a broadcast with customized alternative media in near real time, using fingerprints autonomously identified from the broadcast stream to synchronize the alternative stream — without modifying the original broadcast data, and without requiring privileged access to it.

The claims contemplate alternate audio, alternate video, additional camera angles, subtitles and sign language, with the alternative content coming from a different source than the original broadcast.

The commercially important part is the last clause. Sync is achieved by listening to the broadcast rather than by being handed a timecode, which is why COMMONTARY can work on a stream it has no relationship with, on a viewer’s existing device, over whatever service they happen to be using.

On defensibility

Patents are a real asset, but a patent is a right to litigate, not a true moat. Defensiblity really comes from:

• First-mover position. Others have tried and failed to build similar platforms, but without our patented syncing algorithm, which is what makes an altcasting platform truly viable for the consumer market.
• Network effects. Creators go where the audiences are and audiences go where the voices are. That flywheel, not the IP, is what gets hard to displace — and it is why the consumer app is important even though licensing is the nearer-term revenue path.
• Integration depth. Every platform that embeds the sync layer raises the cost of swapping it out for something else.

Our goal has never been to use the patents to keep others out of alternate audio — it's to be the layer everyone else builds on.