System and Method for Selecting an Item in a List of Items and Associated Products

• US 20070209018A1
• Filed: 12/28/2004
• Published: 09/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: InterDigital Madison Patent Holdings (InterDigital, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Licensing (Vantiva SA)
• Inventors: Lindemann, Robert
• Granted Patent: US 7,458,035 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/784
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04855 Interaction with scrollbars
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4438 Window management, e.g. event handling following interaction with the user interface
• 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 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/482 End-user interface for program selection broadcast systems using EPGs H04H60/72

Abstract

The present invention concerns a system and a method for selecting an item in a list of items and associated products. The selecting system comprises means for repeatedly and simultaneously providing at least two sub-lists of items of the list for displaying on a screen, means for controlling an orderly displaying of the items of each of those sub-lists side by side on the screen, simultaneously and in different scrolling zones for the respective sub-lists, means for scrolling at least partly the list of items on the screen in the various scrolling zones, by repeatedly modifying the items of the sub-lists through cancelling firstly introduced items in the sub-lists and introducing new items from the list of items, and means for enabling a user to select at least one of the items of at least one of the sub-lists being displayed in a given selection area. Applications to STB and interactive TV EPG and to music files retrieval.

Claims

1-38. -38. (canceled)

39. Method for selecting an item in a list of items, the method including the steps of:

displaying on a screen, adjacent to each other, multiple items from a list of items in a first scrolling zone, wherein the items are scrolled by removing items firstly introduced in the first scrolling zone and introducing new items from the list of items into the first scrolling zone;

displaying on the screen, adjacent to each other, multiple items from the list of items in a second scrolling zone, wherein the items are scrolled by removing items firstly introduced in the second scrolling zone and introducing new items from the list of items into the second scrolling zone, and wherein the second scrolling zone is displayed adjacent to the first scrolling zone;

wherein the method further includes the steps of;

presenting a selection area within the first or the second scrolling zone,

accepting a user input as a selection command to select one of the items displayed in the first or second scrolling zone being displayed in the selection area,

accepting a user input as a command to move the selection zone to the respective other scrolling zone, making the respective scrolling zone within which the selection area is presented an elected scrolling zone.

40. The method of claim 39, wherein the items in the first and second scrolling zones are complementary items from the list of items.

41. The method of claim 39, wherein the displaying step includes displaying each scrolling zone with respective different, contrasting colours for elected and non- elected scrolling zone.

42. The method of claim 39, wherein the user input for choosing the elected scrolling zone and the selection command are identical, wherein the duration of the user input is used to distinguish between determining the active sub-list and selecting an item.

43. The method of claim 39, further including the step of highlighting the item in the selection area.

44. The method of claim 39, wherein the items in the first and second scrolling zones (new) are displayed a first and a second scrolling speed, the elected scrolling zone preferably being scrolled at a lower speed than the not elected scrolling zone.

45. The method of claim 39, wherein the scrolling direction and/or the scrolling speed of one or more of the scrolling zones are reversed and/or altered, respectively, or that the selection area is displaced in or against the scrolling direction upon a user input.

46. The method of claim 39, wherein the order of the items in the first and/or second scrolling zone is adapted depending on the preceding user selections.

47. The method of claim 39, wherein selected items from the list of items are reproduced several times in the respective scrolling zone during one complete run of all items of the respective sub-list.

48. The method of claim 47, wherein the frequency of occurrence of identical items in the first or second scrolling zone is dependent of preceding user selections.

49. The method of claim 39, wherein at least one of the items out of the list of items that are displayed in the first and/or second scrolling zone is deleted or replaced by one or more items out of a second list, depending on the frequency and/or time of preceding user selections and/or a single user selection of individual items.

50. The method of claim 39, wherein at least one of the items of the first list of items is linked with at least one item in a second list of items, wherein selection of a linked item of the first list of items effects displaying one or all linked item or items of the second list of items in the first and second scrolling zones.

51. The method of claim 39, wherein the item in the selection area and/or the selected item, or the content any of it relates to, is reproduced in an additional area on the screen.