Methods for using extracted features to perform an action

• US 10,303,714 B1
• Filed: 08/27/2018
• Issued: 05/28/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Network-1 Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Network-1 Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Cox, Ingemar J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Chen, Cai Y
• Application Number:
  US16/113,777
• Time in Patent Office: 274 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/248 Presentation of query results
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/40 of multimedia data, e.g. slideshows comprising image and additional audio data retrieval of still image data G06F16/50; retrieval of audio data G06F16/60; retrieval of video data G06F16/70
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/43 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/433 using audio data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/434 using image data, e.g. images, photos, pictures taken by a user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/48 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/487 using geographical or spatial information, e.g. location
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/489 using time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/51 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/532 Query formulation, e.g. graphical querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5838 using colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/5866 using information manually generated, e.g. tags, keywords, comments, manually generated location and time information
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/73 Querying
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9566 URL specific, e.g. using aliases, detecting broken or misspelled links
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0256 User search
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 : Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 : Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0625 : Directed, with specific intent or strategy
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 : Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/90 : characterised by the use of signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 : for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/58 : of audio determination or detection of speech characteristics in general G10L25/00; speech recognition in general G10L15/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/59 : of video recognising characters or patterns in general G06F18/00, G06V20/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 : Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/256 : NAT traversal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 : for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/75 : Media network packet handling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 : based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 : Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72469 : for operating the device by selecting functions from two or more displayed items, e.g. menus or icons
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 : involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2407 : Monitoring of transmitted content, e.g. distribution time, number of downloads arrangements for monitoring programmes for broadcast or for distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/14
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25841 : involving the geographical location of the client retrieval from the Internet by querying based on geographical locations G06F16/9537; arrangements for identifying locations of receiving stations in broadcast systems H04H60/51; location of the user terminal in data switching networks H04L67/52; services making use of the location of users or terminals in wireless networks H04W4/02; locating users or terminals in wireless networks H04W64/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43 : Processing of content or additional data, e.g. demultiplexing additional data from a digital video stream; Elementary client operations, e.g. monitoring of home network or synchronising decoder's clock; Client middleware real-time communication protocols in data switching networks H04L65/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 : involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 : involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47815 : Electronic shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 : communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 : involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 : involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 : Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8586 : by using a URL processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94; information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; URL in broadcast information H04H20/93; Web-based protocols H04L67/02

Abstract

A computer system comprising one or more processors and computer-readable media operatively connected thereto, having stored thereon instructions for carrying out the steps of: maintaining one or more databases comprising first electronic data comprising digitally created reference compact electronic representations for each of a plurality of reference electronic works and second electronic data associated with the reference electronic works and related to action information corresponding thereto; obtaining a first digitally created compact electronic representation comprising one or more extracted feature vectors of a first electronic work; identifying a matching reference electronic work by comparing the first digitally created compact electronic representation of the first electronic work with the first electronic data using a sub-linear search of the first electronic data; determining the action information corresponding to the matching reference electronic work based on the second electronic data; and associating the determined action information with the first electronic work.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

(a) receiving, at a computer system from a user electronic device, a query related to one or more frames from a video signal displayed at the user electronic device;

(b) extracting, using the computer system, one or more features of the one or more frames, wherein the extracted features include a compact representation of at least a portion of the one or more frames related to one or more blocks of pixels of the frame;

(c) identifying, using the computer system, one or more annotations associated with the one or more frames;

(d) identifying, at the computer system, one or more images related to the one or more frames by comparing the extracted features from the one or more frames with reference features from a first plurality of reference works using a sub-linear search of reference features that identifies one or more matches to the one or more frames but does not guarantee to identify an exact match to the one or more frames, wherein the first plurality of reference works are organized using a tree structure based on annotations including the one or more annotations to eliminate a second plurality of reference works from being searched;

(e) providing, by the computer system to the user electronic device, the identified one or more images along with action information associated with the identified one or more images, wherein the action information is related to an action to be performed at the user electronic device;

(f) receiving, at the computer system from the user electronic device, a selection of one of the identified one or more images; and

(g) providing, to the electronic device, machine readable instructions for performance of the action associated with the selected one of the identified one or more images.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracted features comprise a low-resolution copy of the at least the portion of the one or more frames.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracted features comprise average intensities of n times n blocks of pixels of the at least the portion of the one or more frames.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracted features comprise a pseudo-random sample of pixels from the at least the portion of the one or more frames.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein step (c) is performed by using optical character recognition software on the one or more frames.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein step (c) is performed by using closed captioning information.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the tree structure comprises a KD tree.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the tree structure comprises a vantage point tree.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the tree structure comprises an excluded middle vantage point forest.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the first plurality of reference works comprise content delivered via television broadcast.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the action associated with the selected one of the identified one or more images is redirecting a request to an associate website by a network address translation.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the action associated with the selected one of the identified one or more images is displaying additional information to the user.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the action associated with the selected one of the identified one or more images is automatically dialing a telephone number.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the user electronic device is a personal computer.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the user electronic device is a cell phone.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the user electronic device is a set top box.