Genoa Color Announces First U.S. Patent For Multi-Primary Color TV Technology

28-Mar-05

Genoa Color Technologies, the Israeli startup whose ColorPeakô Multi Primary Color (MPC) television display system was honored by Popular Science magazine as 2004's best new home entertainment technology, has been granted its first patent for that innovation by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Genoa was issued U.S. patent number 6,870,523 for the devices, systems and methods it has developed to display color images using four or more primary colors.""This patent underscores the strength of our intellectual property in the projection TV space,"" said Genoa CEO Ilan Ben-David. ""With 50 patents pending, we expect to receive other key USPTO grants protecting our multi-primary color innovations in the near future.""Many in the consumer electronics industry believe that Genoa's ColorPeak will become the new industry standard. Conventional RGB technology using red, green and blue to recreate color images has prevailed since the advent of color television over fifty years ago. ColorPeak is revolutionary in that it adds from one to three colors to the current RGB mix---typically yellow, cyan and magenta---to significantly expand a display's visible color gamut by approximately 35 percent while increasing its brightness by as much as 40 percent.The additional primaries enable the recreation of many colors and shades such as rich turquoise and crimsons that are not accurately reproduced by RGB-based sets. Depending on content, a ColorPeak display can generate over one trillion colors compared with 16.7 million produced by conventional TV sets. The result is a picture that, with its truer, more vibrant color and brighter image, looks more like cinema than video.The patent describes a projection display device comprising a light source with a color rotating mechanism to sequentially produce light of four or more primary colors. It is controlled by a spatial light modulator (SLM) that selectively attenuates the light from the light source based on image data of the four or more primary colors. Image data from a conventional RGB format can be converted to the desired multi-primary color format. Genoa has over 50 patents pending applying to the concepts, processes, algorithms and implementation of its ColorPeak technology. The inventors are the company's co-founders, CEO Ilan Ben-David and Chief Scientist Moshe Ben-Chorin.In addition to its Popular Science Grand Award, ColorPeak was recently cited by industry newsletter Private Line ReportTM as one of the three most impressive technologies at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.The editor stated, ""The most important image differentiators for the consumer in a TV showroom are brightness and color. By adding extra primaries with their proprietary algorithms and Keshet chip, Genoa enables displays that are brighter and more colorful.""ColorPeak MPC technology is available to television manufacturers via an ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) chip for integration into popular display configurations including LCD and front and rear projection sets.