System and method for providing substitute content in place of blocked content

• US 20040168121A1
• Filed: 06/20/2002
• Published: 08/26/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wantage Technologies LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Matz, William R.
• Granted Patent: US 7,360,160 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/513
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/84 Mapping; Conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/30 Profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/561 Adding application-functional data or data for application control, e.g. adding metadata
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 involving end-user characteristics, e.g. viewer profile, preferences monitoring of user activities for profile generation for accessing a video database G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4668 for recommending content, e.g. movies
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4751 for defining user accounts, e.g. accounts for children
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only

Abstract

A method for blocking content from being presented at a client device including substitution of alternative content. The client device recognizes and evaluates the received tags and blocks content based on a user profile. Substitute content is then identified and presented to the user. Substitute content includes a blank screen, prestored contents, a screen saver, alternative server content, and user selected content. The user may be prompted prior to substitution or choose that substitute content be automatically presented without prompting. Audio may be presented while substitute video is presented.

Claims

1. A method of blocking unwanted content in a distributed network, the distributed network having a client device and a server device, the method comprising:

receiving tagged content;

determining that the tagged content should be blocked;

blocking the tagged content; and

presenting substitute content in place of the tagged content.

2. A method as defined in claim 1 further comprising:

accepting user input determining a substitution mode.

3. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein determining comprises:

comparing a tag from the tagged content with tags in a user profile; and

if a field in the tag from the tagged content matches a field in a tag in the user profile, indicating that the tagged content should be blocked.

4. A method as defined in claim 2 wherein user input comprises:

a source designation designating a source for substitution content;

a manual designation indicating that substitution will not occur automatically; and

an automatic designation indicating that substitution will occur automatically.

5. A method as defined in claim 1 further comprising:

displaying a substitute selection user interface whereby a user may designate a substitution mode.

6. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein substituting comprises presenting a blank screen.

7. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein substituting comprises presenting a screen saver.

8. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein substituting comprises presenting locally stored content stored at the client.

9. A method as defined in claim 1 wherein substituting comprises presenting alternative content from the server device.

10. A method as defined in claim 8 wherein presenting comprises:

automatically identifying alternative content; and

automatically presenting the identified alternative content to the user.

11. A method as defined in claim 8 wherein presenting comprises:

identifying the plurality of content items that may be preferred by the user;

presenting a list of descriptions of the plurality of content items to the user;

enabling the user to select one of the descriptions; and

responsively presenting the content item associated with the description selected by the user.

12. A method as defined in 10 further comprising:

determining whether a prestored tag associated with a prestored content item sufficiently matches a preferred tag associated with a preferred content item; and

if the prestored tag sufficiently matches the preferred tag, then automatically presenting the prestored content item.

13. A method as defined in claim 12 wherein the determining step comprises:

correlating data fields in the prestored tag with data fields in the preferred tag to generate a value; and

comparing the value to a threshold value to determine if the prestored tag sufficiently matches the preferred tag.

14. A method as defined in claim 12 further comprising:

blocking the prestored content item from presentation, if the prestored tag matches a tag in the user profile;

determining whether a second prestored tag associated with a second prestored content item sufficiently matches a preferred tag associated with a preferred content item; and

if the second prestored tag sufficiently matches the preferred tag, automatically presenting the second prestored content item.

15. A client system for presenting substitute content in place of blocked content comprising:

a receive module receiving tagged content from a server system;

a user profile having tags related to content that is to be blocked;

a user profile interface in operable communication with the user profile module operable to transmit tags in the user profile to the analysis module;

an analysis module coupled to the receive module and the user profile interface operable to determine if received tagged content is to be blocked based on tags in the user profile and present substitute content if the received tagged content is to be blocked; and

a user input/output module coupled to the analysis module operable to receive substitute content from the analysis module for presentation.

16. A client system as defined in claim 15 wherein the analysis module comprises:

a content insertion engine in operable communication with the receive module and a prestored content storage;

a blocking module in operable communication with the content insertion engine and the user profile interface, operable to receive tagged content, and compare the tagged content to tags in the user profile; and

a presentation module in operable communication with the content insertion engine and the blocking module, operable to receive a blocking signal identifying blocked content from the blocking module and present substitute content in place of the blocked content.

17. A client system as defined in claim 16 wherein the analysis module further comprises:

a preferred data storage in operable communication with the presentation module, operable to store data related to user selections.

18. A client system as defined in claim 17 wherein the preferred data storage is further in operable communication with the content insertion engine and the content insertion engine is further operable to receive preferred tags from the preferred data storage and compare the preferred tags to tags in the prestored content storage.

19. A client system as defined in claim 18 wherein the content insertion engine is further operable to automatically identify a list of one or more content items in the prestored content storage and communicate the list to the presentation module for presentation to a user, the content insertion engine further operable to detect a selection of the one of the list of one or more content items and transmit the selected content item to the blocking module.

20. A client system as defined in claim 15 wherein the analysis module further comprises:

a profile generator in operable communication with the profile interface and the user input/output module, operable to receive a user selection identifying one or more tags to be blocked and store one or more tags associated with the user selection in the user profile.

21. A client system as defined in claim 20 wherein the user selections may identify predetermined user profile data for storage in the user profile.

22. A client system as defined in claim 21 wherein the predetermined user profile data is downloaded from a network operably coupled to the client system.

23. A client system as defined in claim 21 wherein the user selections correspond to a code uniquely identifying a set of tags to be stored in the user profile.

24. A client system as defined in claim 21 wherein the user input/output module is operable to present a menu of tags to a user and to receive the user selections via the menu of tags and communicate the user selections to the profile generator.

25. A graphical user interface to facilitate content substitution in response to identifying blocked content comprising:

a substitute source area operable to receive one or more user designations designating a source of substitute content; and

a preview area operable to present a preview of the designated source of content substitution.

26. A graphical user interface as defined in claim 25 wherein the substitute source area comprises:

a selectable screen saver visual display element, whereby a user can select a screen saver as the source of substitute content.

27. A graphical user interface as defined in claim 26 wherein the substitute source area further comprises:

a selectable file designation display element, whereby the user can choose a location and name of a screen saver file.

28. A graphical user interface as defined in claim 26 wherein the substitute source area further comprises:

a selectable prestored content visual display element, whereby the user can select prestored content as the source for substitute content;

a selectable local dynamic visual display element whereby the user can choose the prestored content to be from a local dynamic source; and

a selectable user selection visual display element whereby the user can choose a user selection as the prestored content.

29. A graphical user interface as defined in claim 28 wherein the substitute source area further comprises:

a selectable server content visual display element whereby the user can select server content as the source for substitute content.

30. A graphical user interface as defined in claim 29 wherein the substitute source area further comprises:

a selectable blank screen visual display element whereby the user may select a blank screen as the source for substitute content;

a selectable ‘

with audio’

visual display element whereby the user can choose that streaming audio be presented while the blank screen is presented; and

a selectable ‘

audio from file’

visual display element whereby the user can choose an audio file to be presented while the blank screen is presented.

31. A graphical user interface as defined in claim 30 wherein the substitute source area further comprises:

a selectable manual substitution visual display element, whereby the user can choose to be prompted prior to content substitution; and

a selectable automatic substitution visual display element, whereby the user can choose that content be substituted automatically without prompting.