Advertisement insertion, profiling, impression, and feedback

• US 20070043616A1
• Filed: 04/07/2006
• Published: 02/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/30/1995
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Shimakawa, Keiso, Okamoto, Shinichi, Kubo, Makoto, Chatani, Masayuki, House, Andrew, Kagiwada, Yutaka, Zalewski, Gary, Ebisawa, Kan, Kutaragi, Ken, Datta, Glen
• Granted Patent: US 7,895,076 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.680
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/352 involving special game server arrangements, e.g. regional servers connected to a national server or a plurality of servers managing partitions of the game world
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/525 Changing parameters of virtual cameras
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/61 using advertising information
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/73 Authorising game programs or game devices, e.g. checking authenticity
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/50 characterized by details of game servers
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5506 using advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/552 for downloading to client devices, e.g. using OS version, hardware or software profile of the client device
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/63 for controlling the execution of the game in time
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0242 Determining effectiveness of advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0244 Optimization
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0252 based on events or environment, e.g. weather or festivals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0272 Period of advertisement exposure
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/3227 Configuring a gaming machine, e.g. downloading personal settings, selecting working parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/40 Arrangements for broadcast specially adapted for accumulation-type receivers
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 40/90 specially adapted for satellite broadcast receiving
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/25 Arrangements for updating broadcast information or broadcast-related information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/375 : Commercial
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2408 : Monitoring of the upstream path of the transmission network, e.g. client requests monitoring data switching networks utilization H04L43/0876; scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2547 : Third Party Billing, e.g. billing of advertiser
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25891 : being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; 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 21/26258 : for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4223 : Cameras H04N23/00 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42676 : for modulating an analogue carrier signal to encode digital information or demodulating it to decode digital information, e.g. ADSL or cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/432 : Content retrieval operation from a local storage medium, e.g. hard-disk details of retrieval of video data and associated meta data in video databases G06F16/739
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/433 : Content storage operation, e.g. storage operation in response to a pause request, caching operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/435 : Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 : involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 : Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/458 : Scheduling content for creating a personalised stream, e.g. by combining a locally stored advertisement with an incoming stream; Updating operations, e.g. for OS modules ; time-related management operations arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or during the distribution H04H20/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 : for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4753 : for user identification, e.g. by entering a PIN or password cryptographic authentication protocols H04L9/32; networks authentication protocols H04L63/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 : Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6581 : Reference data, e.g. a movie identifier for ordering a movie or a product identifier in a home shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6582 : Data stored in the client, e.g. viewing habits, hardware capabilities, credit card number arrangements where receivers interact with the broadcast H04H20/38
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 : involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/44 : Receiver circuitry for the reception of television signals according to analogue transmission standards H04N5/14 takes precedence

Abstract

Various apparatus, methods and systems for insertion of advertisements in various environments are provided. Apparatus, methods and systems for profiling users, registering advertisement impressions and generating feedback in response to advertisement viewing are also disclosed.

Claims

1. An apparatus for executing content data having a plurality of images, the plurality of images including original images and advertisement images, the advertisement images comprising advertising data, the apparatus comprising:

at least one storage mechanism, wherein the content data having the plurality of images is stored in the at least one storage mechanism;

a network connection coupled to the storage mechanism, whereby the storage mechanism may receive and store new advertising data transmitted over the network connection, the advertising data configured for insertion into the advertisement images; and

a processing unit coupled to the at least one storage mechanism, the processing unit configured to execute the content data having the plurality of images, whereby the execution of the content data causes the display of a virtual environment including original images and advertising images, the advertising images comprising the new advertising data stored in the at least one storage mechanism

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the content data comprises primary media content and the advertising data comprises trigger data corresponding to a particular advertisement.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the advertising data is transmitted to the apparatus during a download of primary media content from a server.

4. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein an advertising server provides the advertisement data for insertion into the advertisement images based in part on specifications of an advertiser and information contained within the primary media content indicating that advertisements may be inserted into the primary media content.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein a feedback record from a user is transmitted over the network connection, the feedback record reflecting exposure of the user to the advertisement images.

6. The apparatus of claim 5, wherein the feedback record reflects impressions of a user to the advertisement images based on user manipulation of the content data and a state of at least one object in the virtual environment, the at least one object occluding a portion of an advertisement image in the virtual environment.