Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The disclosed methods and apparatus relate generally to the electronics media industry, such as cable television (CATV), home shopping services, on-line computer services and computer memory applications. These methods and apparatus allow a user to access and make use of electronic media input and output devices by reference to and/or utilization of standard printed ratter, such as magazines, textbooks, or any other printed matter that can be correlated to electronic media.
16 Citations
192 Claims
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1-167. -167. (canceled)
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168. A system for displaying programming material to a user, the system comprising:
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a printed advertisement having at least one machine recognizable feature;
a feature recognition unit having associated therewith a means for recognizing said feature and a means for transmitting a coded signal in response to the recognition of said feature;
an intelligent controller having associated therewith a means for accessing said programming material in response to receiving said coded signal; and
a display unit for presenting said programming material. - View Dependent Claims (169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186)
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187. A method of providing a user access to programming material, comprising the steps of:
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printing a machine recognizable feature within an advertisement;
scanning said machine recognizable feature of said advertisement; and
transmitting data associated with said machine recognizable feature via a communication link to access said programming material, wherein said programming material is related to said advertisement. - View Dependent Claims (188, 189)
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190. A method of providing a user access to programming material associated with an advertisement, comprising the steps of:
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printing a machine recognizable feature within said advertisement, wherein said machine recognizable feature has associated therewith a command sequence for accessing programming material;
scanning said machine recognizable feature within said advertisement and downloading data indicative of said machine recognizable feature via the Internet to a remote server;
accessing programming material from said remote server; and
transmitting said programming material to said user, allowing said user to perceive said programming material in a humanly perceivable form, wherein said programming material is related to said advertisement. - View Dependent Claims (191, 192)
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Specification