I've been describing our AstroVirtual Environments in this space for about a year and a half now, and in particular, the Museum "Proof of concepts" that we have modeled for several potential situations. The "anniversary" in fact was September 16, 2022, as noted in the December 16, 2022 blog post. We showed a crude mock-up at an ACM Workshop Sept 30, 2022, and we have just (as in "just last month") been invited to write that up for a Conference Proceeding. Writing these things down takes a while, right?
Did I ever mention the AstroVirtual website? https://www.astrovirtual.com
I probably didn't mention a new Storyboard that describes the ACM Virtual Hall of Fame that we took to New York City last month. This builds heavily on the ideas of that mock-up in September 2022.
Check this out: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k2Ve_PkkPCc3MKf9-Uufl0JdhbWKBaLu/view
More significantly today, we reached a different milestone--we were officially awarded our first patent on the AstroVirtual technology. Coming out of the Workshop, we felt that the reception merited some true follow-up, and as a result, we tried to codify our thoughts into a coherent stream, that we then presented to a retired Patent Attorney.
I always struggle with the idea of patents--both for the cost and time involved, but also for the relatively low probable return. After some initial discussion though, we were convinced that it might be worth the investment. We filed 42 claims on December 13, 2022, of which 27 were for "Method" and 15 for "Apparatus". Along the way, the two were separated for reasons that are obscure to me, but the key fact is that the "Methods" were fast-tracked because the two inventors--Scott Futryk, my partner, and me--are both 'elders' and they want to get this done while we're still sentient apparently.
Well, it worked. Today March 19 2024, the USPTO (US Patent and Trademarrk Office) issued Patent #11,935,131 B1 for 27 claims to Scott and me, assigned to our fledgling company, AstroVirtual Inc.
My last patent, # 7,904,323 B2 was filed by 8 inventotrs on December 23, 2003, and finally issued on March 8, 2011. So the 'fast-track' worked.
Ironically, or maybe not so ironically as you think about it, both patents are in related space. Here are the two titles, and the respective 'inventors' Intel is the assignee for the Multi-team patent
Anyway, just wanted to note this occasion, and acknowledge the terrific work of my colleague, Scott.
