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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3045
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`PATENT APPLICATION
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`TRANSMITTAL
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`Autornatic Hierardtical Cateogrization of Music by Meladata. l__
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`Msistant Commissioner for Patents
`SS Box Patent Application
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`Applicant claims small entity status.
`8. Nucleotide andlor Amino Acid Sequence Submission
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`a. D Computer Readable Fonn (CRF)
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`For CONTINUATION or DIVISIONAL APPS only: The entire disclosure of the prior application. from which an oath or declaration is supplied
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`19. CORRESPONDENCE ADDRESS 7
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`CL 000045
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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3047
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`

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`FEE TRANSMITTAL
`for FY 2001
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`Prtarn fees are sublet! to .-innual revision.
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`TOTAL AMOUNT OF PAYMENT
`METHOD OF PAYMENT (check one)
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`Group An Unit
`Attorney Dodtet No.
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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3048
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`PATENT APPLICATION
`
`Attorney Docket No.: 17002-O2250OUS
`Client Reference No.: CT-1139
`
`
`
`*2‘
`
`AUTOMATIC HIERARCHICAL CATEGORIZATION OF MUSIC BY
`METADATA
`
`Inventor:
`
`RON GOODMAN, a citizen of the United States,
`
`226 Jeter Street
`Santa Cruz, CA 95060
`
`.
`
`HOWARD N. EGAN, a citizen ofthc United States,
`219 Elinor Street
`_
`Capitola, CA 95010
`
`SE
`
`Assignee:
`
`CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY LTD.
`31 lntemational Business Park
`Creative Resource
`Singapore 609921
`Republic of Singapore
`
`Entity:
`
`Large
`
`5
`
`_
`»
`3»
`
`TOWNSEND and TOWNSEND and CREW LLP
`TWO Embarcadero Center, 8"‘ Floor
`San Francisco, California 94111-3834
`Tel: 4I5—576—O200
`
`.
`
`CL 000047
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3049
`
`

`
`PATENT
`lie
`Attorney Docket No.: 17002-022500US
`Client Reference No.: CT—1l39
`
`AUTOMATIC HIERARCHICAL CATEGORIZATION OF MUSIC BY
`METADATA
`
`'
`
`ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE
`
`A method, performed by software executing on the processor of a portable
`
`5
`
`music playback device, that automatically files tracks according to hierarchical structure of
`
`categories to organize tracks in a logical order. A user interface is utilized to change the
`
`hierarchy, View track names, and select tracks for playback or other operations.
`
`SF H74925 V2
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`CL 000048
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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3050
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`Attorney Docket No.2 170 -022500US
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`Client Reference
`
`o.:4 CT-l I39
`
`AUTOMATIC HIERARCHICAL CATEGORIZATION OF USIC BY
`METADATA
`
`CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICA ' ONS
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`BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
`Today, portable consumer electronic devices are more powerful than ever.
`
`For example, small, portable music playback devices can store hundreds, even thousands, of
`
`compressed songs and can play back the songs at high quality. With the capacity for so many
`songs, a playback device can store many songs from different albums, artists, styles of music,
`etc.
`
`Music jukeboxes implemented in software executed by a digital computer and
`portable MP3 and CD players both provide facilities for fonning playlists. For example, the
`. OOZTC player, distributed by the assignee of the present application, runs on a host PC and
`has a playlist feature that allows selection of tracks from the PC’s hard disk to be included in
`
`the playlist.
`
`As storage capacity increases and songs are compressed to shorter file lengths
`the number of songs that can be stored increases rapidly. Major problems facing the
`Consumer are organizing and accessing the tracks.
`I
`
`Typically, portable-devices have a user interface including a small screen and
`buttons.’ Using such a compactuser interface to navigate and select among hundreds of songs
`is inefficient and often frustrating. The display screen can only show a few song titles at one
`time, and the limited controls make it difficult for a user to arbitrarily select, or move among,
`the songs.
`
`The creation of playlists is one technique to organize the playing of songs. A
`
`561 ofsongs can be included in a playlist which is given a name and stored. When the playlist
`is accessed, the set of songs can be played utilizing various formats such as sequential play or
`shuffle.
`
`-
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`CL 000049
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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3051
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`However, the creation of playlists itself becomes problematic as the number of
`
`songs increases, since the user often arbitrarily selects songs from a large number of tracks to
`
`form a playlist. This selection mechanism: can be fairly tedious; does not necessarily
`
`produce playlists that are of interest to the user over the course of time; may not remain
`
`5
`
`up—to-date if new songs are added that logically fit into a previously created playlist (e.g.
`“Favorites by Band X” might become out of date if a new favorite by Band X is added after
`
`the playlist was created); and leads to “lost” songs that are not members of any playlist.
`
`Accordingly, improved techniques for organizing and grouping tracks useful
`
`10
`
`-33:
`
`
`
`in a portable music player are needed.
`
`~
`
`SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
`According to one aspect of the present invention, a technique is provided for
`
`organizing tracks on a portablemusic player by automatically filing tracks in a hierarchical
`order based on attributes of the tracks.
`
`According to another aspect of the invention, metadata is associated with each
`
`track that is used to automatically define the track’s appropriate place in the hierarchy.
`
`According to another aspect of the invention, the hierarchy is displayed on the
`
`portable music player so that a user can traverse the organizational hierarchy to find
`
`individual tracks or find playlists composed of logical groups of tracks.
`
`According to another aspect of the invention, the hierarchy is derived by using
`
`metadata associated with the audio content that was obtained through any source of metadata
`
`(e.g. CDDB metadata, id3v2 metadata, other obtainable metadata) and subsequently stored
`
`with or alongside the file that stores the track.
`
`25
`
`According to another aspect of the invention, a file is fonnatted so that an
`unaltered track is stored as file data and information about the track is stored in file attribute
`
`files.
`
`Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent in view of the
`
`following detailed description and appended drawings.
`
`30
`
`BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
`
`Fig.
`
`I is a schematic diagram ofa tree structure for hierarchical filing of
`
`tracks;
`
`‘
`
`3
`
`CL 000050
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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3052
`
`

`
`Fig. 2 is a definition file that specifies the hierarchy depicted in Fig. 1;
`
`Fig. 3 is a user’s view of the hierarchy;
`
`Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a user interface displaying the hierarchical
`
`category structure;
`
`Fig. 5 is a diagram ofa file format for storing filed data and file attributes;
`
`Fig. 6 is a flow chart depicting steps for filing tracks according to the
`
`hierarchical tree structure;
`Fig. 7 depicts a tree resulting from searching the tracks; and
`Fig. 8 depicts a format for a user interface.
`
`DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
`A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described in the context
`
`of a portable personal player that plays audio files stored in memory. The files may be in
`
`MP3, wav. or other digital formats.
`
`In the presently described embodiment, users are able to see the tracks on their
`
`player in some organized fashion other than as a single list of tracks. As will be described in
`
`more detail below, in one embodiment tracks are sorted utilizing a tree structure having
`
`branches labeled according to types of metadata associated with the tracks
`
`For example, a track recorded as “Golden Slumbers" by the Beatles that
`
`appears on their album “Hey Jude” might appear as a track under the album “Abbey Road” as
`
`Well as a track under the list of tracks by the Beatles.
`
`It might appear as a track under the
`
`genre “Pop Rock” as well as “Songs from the 60’s.” Furthermore, the organization can have
`
`more complex hierarchies. For example, the category of “Pop Rock” might contain
`
`’
`
`3‘
`
`1
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`5
`
`10
`
`
`
`25
`
`subcategories “British Musicians,” “American Musicians” and “Other Musicians”. In all
`
`cases, the track is automatically filed into all appropriate locations without requiring user
`interaction.
`
`ln the currently defined embodiment, a tree structure is defined by a file
`
`having the following structure.
`
`30
`
`The first line ofa TreeDef.inf file contains a version number:
`V1.0
`
`Each subsequent line (at least in V1.0) contains lines ofthe following format:
`
`CATEGORY_NAM E|TRACK_TYPE__MASK| CATEGORY__S TRUCTURE
`
`3
`
`CL 000051
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`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3053
`
`

`
`5
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`""''"‘?“"‘.€"“"'i"‘:’«‘§’fi""?1‘v1-Lr'1"fi'9‘-'!l~h-O-?q
`
`
`
`
`
`"‘»4‘*'-‘"*1:.1-‘.:\“"3.*v"t-'1'-.<w_:»‘c:~:«'«--.-.«~.---.t-.......-;.a..-.=_,.
`
`
`CATEGORY_NA1\/IE5 are the top-level names of the branch under which
`
`tracks are sorted. They include things like “Album,” “Artist,” “Voice Tracks," “All Tracks,”
`etc.
`
`TRACK_'I‘YPE_MASKs tell which types of tracks are to be filed under this
`
`particular branch. The actual value is a hexadecimal numerical value (in ‘Ox’ format, e.g.
`
`0x01) generated by ORing the following flags together as appropriate:
`
`
`enum tTrackType
`
`{ ,
`
`kTTNothing=0x00,
`
`k'I'I‘Song=0x0 1,
`
`k'ITVoice=0x02,
`
`kTTBook=0x04,
`
`k'I'I‘Macro=0x08,'
`
`k'I'I‘P1aylist=0x 1 0
`
`};
`
`So, for example, the ‘‘Album’‘ branch has a TRACK__TYPE_MASK of
`
`k'I'I‘Song, because only songs are filed under that branch, but the “All Tracks” branch has a
`
`TRACK_TYPE_MASK of (kTTSong | kTTVoice | kTTBook).
`
`Other elements might be added to tTrackType (e. g. kTTVideo) as appropriate.
`
`CATEGORY_STRUCTUREs tell how to file the songs based on their
`
`metadata information. The CATEGORY_S'l'RUCTURE is a string of characters that tell,
`
`fiom left to right, the order of hierarchy. The characters come from the following enum
`constants:
`
`25
`
`enum tFileTag
`
`{
`
`kFTNone='@',
`
`kFTTrackType=‘T‘,
`kFTTitle='N',
`
`kFTAudioFi1e='F',
`
`kFTAnist=‘M‘,
`
`kFTAlbum='L',
`
`30
`
`:.'».'u».
`
`4
`
`‘
`
`CL 000052
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3054
`
`

`
`kFTGenre='G',
`
`kFTSource=’S',
`
`kFTYear=’Y’,
`
`kFTA1tistCountry=’C’
`
`5
`
`};
`
`
`Thus, a CATEGORY__STRUCTURE of LN tells to create a subcategory that
`
`is a list of Albums, each of which contains a list of Tracks.
`
`In total, a line like:
`
`10
`
`Album|Ox0l|LN
`
`Says to create a branch called “Album” which contains tracks of type-
`
`kTTSong organized first by album name, and then by track name. '
`
`5"
`
`The following is an example ofa tree definition file similar (though not
`
`identical) to the hierarchy presented in the Nomad Jukebox product (the ‘B’ before each
`
`:
`
`15
`
`Fi1eTag was used to identify that these are basic tags so that we wouldn’t run out of letters in
`
` represents a level in the hierarchy):
`
`
`the alphabet as we included more complex metadata ~ thus each group of two letters
`
`V1.0
`
`A1bum|0x01IBLBN
`
`Artist|0x0l |BMBN
`
`
`
`
`
`.,'.;..—.;_:.-‘..o.«..s::-.,..".-.3...-'.....-.—',.....-.¢-‘.....—.-...._....'.:..n,a_-,._.___,,_
`
`Genre|0x01|BGBN
`
`Voice Tracks|0x02|BSBGBN
`
`Playlists|Ox10|BN
`Macros[0x08|BN
`All Tracks|0xO7|BN
`
`25
`
`Fig. 1 depicts a hypothetical organization hierarchy. The tree shows how
`
`tracks might be listed (as leaves in the tree) afier having been organized. Example values for
`
`30
`
`nodes in the tree are shown as well. The same track may appear more than once as a leaf in
`the tree, as described above, ifit fits into multiple categories (e.g. a song that appears on the
`
`Abbey Road branch would also appear in the Beatles branch).
`
`tn the example shown, the
`
`first branch contains tracks organized by album. As shown in the example, this music
`
`collection contains three tracks from “Abbey Road” and three tracks from “Hits from the
`
`'
`
`5
`
`CL ooooss
`
`i
`
`1
`
`,.;,.,.,....
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3055
`
`

`
`60’s”. The second branch contains tracks organized by artist, and sub organized by where the
`
`artist is from. Thus, a user browsing would first select the “Artists” branch and then choose
`
`between “British Artists" and “American Artists”. Finally, they would select the particular
`artist.
`In the third branch, all tracks are shown.
`
`5
`
`The tree definition file that would specify the hierarchy shown in Figure 1 is
`shown in Figure 2.
`
`The first line identifies the version ofthe tree definition file.
`
`The second line defines the “Albums” branch. The first part of the line,
`
`“Albums” defines the name of the branch. The second part, “0x01,” defines that all musical
`
`- 10
`
`tracks should be categorized on this branch. The third part, “BLBN,” defines that the branch
`
`
`
`‘
`
`2_5
`
`30
`
`lists first the names of all albums (BL) andthen tracks on those albums (BN).
`
`'
`
`The third line defines the “Artists” branch. The first part of the line “Artists"
`
`defines the name of the branch. The second part, “Ox0l ,” defines that all musical tracks
`
`should be categorized on this branch. The third part, “BCBMBN," defines that the branch
`
`lists first the names of all countries where artists in this collection come from (BC) and under
`
`those items, the artists’ names (BM), and then tracks by those artists (BN).
`
`Fig. 3 shows what a user’s View of this hierarchy might be if he/she were
`
`shown a fully expanded view of the 6—song tree. Notice that each song appears three times,
`once in each branch.
`
`In consumer products the tree define tile is not edited directly but through a
`
`user interface, one example of which is depicted in Fig. 4. An example of a user interface for
`
`viewing songs by category and editing the tree structure is depicted in Fig. 4.
`
`An embodiment of the invention is utilized in the Nomad® Jukebox,
`
`manufactured by the assignee of the present invention, and described more fully in the
`copending application, filed on the same date as the present application, entitled “System for
`Selecting and Playing Songs in a Playback Device with a Limited User Interface," (Attny.
`Docket No. 17002-020800).
`
`In a preferred embodiment, metadata is associated with each track and
`
`In the preferred embodiment,
`includes such information as title, genre, artist name, type, etc.
`Software stored in a portable player and executed by the onboard processor automatically
`files each track in the correct category utilizing the associated metadata and the tree define
`
`file. The program code can be stored in any computer readable medium including magnetic
`
`storage, CD ROM, optical media, or digital data encoded on an electromagnetic signal.
`
`6
`
`CL oooo54
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3056
`
`

`
`Thus, the user is automatically provided with a powerful and flexible tool for
`
`_
`organizing and categorizing the tracks stored on the portable player.
`If the tracks are formatted in MP3 format the metadata.can be stored in ID3
`
`tags included in the MP3 file. In one embodiment of the invention, the tracks are stored in
`
`5
`
`alternate file format including file data and file attributes. The file data is the music track
`
`itself and the file attributes part of the file includes fields of arbitrary size which are used to
`
`store metadata characterizing the track stored as the file data. Again this metadata includes
`
`information about the track such as title, genre, artist name, type, etc.
`There are several advantages to using the alternate file format. Metadata of
`
`10
`
`types not easily included in an [D3 tag can be utilized. Further, the original track format is
`
`not changed, so that error correction data such as checksums are valid. Finally, any file
`
`format can be used (c. g. WAV, WMA, etc.) because the metadata is stored separately, and
`
`thus audio formats that have limited support for metadata can still be stored on the portable
`player in native format without transcoding. The formatted files are formed by software
`stored in the portable music player and executed by an on-board processor.
`The metadata for each track is utilized to file each track, using the categories
`defined in the hierarchical structure as described above, without any input from the user.
`
`'Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of the alternative file format including file data
`
`in the form of an MP3 track, and metadata fields for holding data indicating the name of the
`album the track is from, the name of the song, the genre of the song, and the type of track.
`A particular embodiment of a file format will now be described. All tracks are
`
`created with some set of attributes as shown below:
`
`15
`
`'?:_,-3
`
`
`
`+——f’Z"-'
`
`Definition of Tracklnfo Data Field
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Attr 1 tc
`42
`N
`
`Attr 1 name len
`
`
`
`
`Attrl data len
`
`
`
`Length of attribute data
`
`Attribute name strin
`
`7
`
`-
`
`.
`
`‘CL oooo55
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3057
`
`

`
`
`
` _
`-_
`Attrl data rm -_
`
`
`
`Attr 1 Data
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`DWORD
`
`ASCIIstIin 0
`
`Ascu J
`
`Ascn
`mamas
`Inb es
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Reuired Attributes
`
`
`values
`Ascm.
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`TRACKNUM
`l—n track within album
`
`
`These attributes can be subsequently changeable via a host application,
`running on a personal computer connected to the portable music player.
`
`5
`
`Fig. 6 shows a flow chart of an embodiment the process used to build the
`
`hierarchical database of tracks. It starts by iterating through each track, and, for each track,
`
`iterating through each branch to find if the track belongs on the branch, and, if so, where.
`
`In
`
`this case, the term track could refer to any content, e.g. a music track, a spoken word track, or
`even a video track.
`
`_
`
`3
`
`CL 000056
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3058
`
`

`
`Also, the hierarchical catalog of tracks can be used to form playlists in a
`
`structured manner. For example, if a user wants to hear Jazz and Blues the entire sub-
`categories can be selected to form one playlist.
`An alternative hierarchical catalog generation technique will now be
`
`5
`
`described. In this altemalive embodiment, at system startup and as tracks are added or
`
`changed, the hierarchy is generated as an in-memory tree structure. Each track is added to
`the tree using the categories ALBUM, ARTIST and GENRE.
`The following example shows the algorithm for adding a track. For clarity,
`_-_.____§
`only the attributes used by the tree are shown.
`
`
`
`
`
`TITLE
`
`l 0
`
`
`
`“Free Fallin ”
`
`“Full Moon Fever”
`
`
`
`
`1
`
`The following function is executed to build the in-memory memory tree.
`
`‘Build Tree ()
`
`15
`
`For each track,
`
`Add Track To Category(Album, Track)
`
`Add Track To Category(Artist, Track)
`
`Add Track To Category(Genre,Track)
`End ofBuild Tree
`
`
`_20
`
`Fig. 7 depicts a tree which could result from implementing Build Tree()
`
`function. Note that “Stardust” does not have any entries for Album or Artist. The host
`
`Software running on a computer connected to the portable music player could be utilized to
`
`add missing attributes to the “Stardust” track and, optionally, edit the title attribute. The
`
`25
`
`Build Tree() function would then reinsert this track in the correct location in the tree.
`
`Fig. 8 is an embodiment ofa user interface according to another embodiment
`
`of the invention. In this example the root node is labeled “My Configuration” and the
`
`Playlist category has been selected and the Playlist subcategory “Meddle” has been selected.
`
`9
`
`CL 000057
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3059
`
`
`
`L.~\“,;-.<,\_.,_,U_
`
`Z
`
`
`
`

`
`Note that the types of Metadata, in this example, Track Name, Artist, Album, Tempo and
`
`Dance, are listed across the top of the screen, and the attribute values for each track are listed
`
`in a row across the screen. Various control buttons are displayed to the right of configuration
`
`window that facilitate quickly invoking selected processing on a selected track.
`
`5
`
`The invention has now been described with reference to the preferred
`
`embodiments. Alternatives and substitutions will now be apparent to persons of skill in the
`art.
`
`
`
`,0
`
`_
`
`CL 000058
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3060
`
`

`
`WHAT IS CLAIMED IS:
`
`Wag
`
`
`1.
`
`A method, performed by a processor in a portable digital music player,
`
`*OOO\lO\U\-bl.»-)I\)
`
`audio tracks stored on a computer readable media, with each audio track having
`
`metadata
`
`sociated therewith including category value data for naming attributes of the track
`
`and type da a indicating the type of track, said method comprising the acts of:
`
`reading a definition file that defines an ordered hierarchical tree structure, with
`
`the file includi
`type information
`
`category names for naming the branch under which tracks are sorted, track
`
`ecifying which type of tracks are to be sorted under the branch, and
`
`structure informatio defining how to file tracks based on associated metadata;
`
`for eac
`
`track, iteratively determining, base on metadata describing the track,
`
`10
`
`if thearack belongs in
`
`e branch, and, for each branch in which the track belongs, traversing
`
`the branch to determine t
`
`appropriate location to file the track.
`
`
`
`
`2.
`
`The met 0d of claim 1, where said act of searching further comprises
`
`the acts of:
`
`
`
`utilizing track type
`particular branch.
`
`formation to file only tracks of a specified type under a
`
`3.
`
`The method of clai
`
`1 further comprising the acts of:
`
`for each branch, utilizing cate ory structure information to tile tracks in a
`
`specified attribute order.
`
`V 4.
`
`The method of claim 1, where
`
`8
`
`id ponable digital music player
`
`
`
`includes a display screen and a user interface for intera ing with the display, further
`Comprising the acts of:
`
`order;
`
`displaying the categories and subcategories
`
`the display in a hierarchical
`
`
`
`displaying all names of tracks associated with a ategory or sub-category
`
`when a user utilizes the interface to select a category or sub-cate
`
`ry;
`
`
`
`‘
`
`11
`
`.
`
`CL 000059
`
`SONY Exhibit 1004 - Page 3061
`
`7-
`
`3
`
`1
`
`\lO\VJIAUJI~J
`
`"fi!‘s‘*':’
`
`

`
`8
`
`9
`
`10
`
`11
`
`,_
`
`
`
`utilizing the pointer to access and play a track when a user selects a track
`
`name through the user interface. and
`
`
`ilizing the pointer to access and play a collection of tracks within a category
`
`or subcategory w n a user selects a category or subcategory through the user interface.
`
`A method, implemented by a processor in a portable digital music
`
`player, for associ ting metadata with audio tracks comprising the acts of:
`
`ope ' g a formatted file for each track comprising a file data portion and a file
`attributes portion, wit
`e file attributes portion including a plurality of fields corresponding
`es;
`to category types and
`I
`
`storing an
`
`and
`
`odified audio track in the file data portion of the formatted file;
`
`
`
`
`
`storing category t
`
`corresponding fields.
`
`
`e and file type information about the unmodified track in
`
`
`A method, performed by a processor in a portable digital music player,
`6.
`for filing au '0 tracks, stored on a computer readable media, under categories in an in-
`
`2
`
`3 memory tree st
`
`cture, with each audio track having metadata associated therewith including
`
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