MEDIA CONTENT DEVICE, SYSTEM AND METHOD

• US 20150199313A1
• Filed: 02/26/2015
• Published: 07/16/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/17/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Next Issue Media
• Inventors: Barraclough, Keith, Irvine, David, Logan, John, Carapito, Carlos, Rubin, Abraham, Larson, Melanie, Gerlach, James Nathaniel
• Granted Patent: US 10,839,142 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/62 Protecting access to data via a platform, e.g. using keys or access control rules
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/01 Input arrangements or combined input and output arrangements for interaction between user and computer G06F3/16 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/149 Adaptation of the text data for streaming purposes, e.g. Efficient XML Interchange [EXI] format
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0258 Registration
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 17/20 for washing or drying articles, e.g. clothes, motor cars

Abstract

Access is provided for different types of media content provided by disparate publishers, and in formats corresponding to operating characteristics of respective user devices. As consistent with one or more example embodiments herein, media content access is filtered for users requesting access via different user devices, based upon characteristics of the device to which the access is provided, user subscription data and publisher-specific criteria. A user-specific storefront interface is generated for each of a multitude of users, based upon the filtering. Each storefront interface indicates media content that can be displayed at the device to which access is requested, and identifies media content to which the user does and does not have subscription access. The user-specific storefront interfaces are presented at respective user devices, and media content is delivered to each device in response to selections made via the user-specific storefront interfaces.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

a first circuit module configured and arranged to format different types of media content having disparate formats and received from disparate content providers, into a plurality of common format types based upon formatting criteria defined for each of the disparate content providers, each common formatting type corresponding to electronic interface characteristics for one of a plurality of disparate types of user media content display circuits via which the media content is to be presented;

a second circuit module configured and arranged with the first circuit module to generate and format a user interface for each of a multitude of users respectively having a unique user identification, wherein each generated user interface includes data that identifies media content to which access by the user is permitted and media content to which access by the user is not permitted, based upon;

stored data indicating a user access condition including time-based subscription data for a user identification associated with the user,

characteristics of one of the types of media content display circuits via which the user is to access the media content, and

criteria set by the respective content providers for the respective media content; and

a third circuit module configured and arranged with the first and second circuit modules to transmit data that provides the user interfaces at each of the media content display circuits, that identifies the media content to which each user is permitted to access, and that identifies the media content to which the user is not permitted to access.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first and second circuit modules include at least one CPU hardware-based circuit that is programmed to format the different types of media content and to generate and format the user interface by executing respective sets of instructions.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, further including a plurality of filter modules, each filter module including circuitry programmed to carry out operations, the filter modules including:

a first filter module configured and arranged to filter media content access based upon characteristics of one of the types of media content display circuits to which access to the media content is provided by providing access, via the second and third circuit modules, to media content having a format which the type of media content display circuits can access and display;

a second filter module configured and arranged to filter media content access by providing access to media content, via the second and third circuit modules, for respective content access requests based upon stored time-based subscription data for a user identification associated with each content access request; and

a third filter module configured and arranged to filter media content access by providing access to media content, via the second and third circuit modules, based upon access criteria specific to each of the disparate content providers for which the media content is provided; and

wherein the second circuit is configured and arranged to generate and format the user interface by interacting with the first, second and third filter modules to respectively filter media content based upon characteristics of the type of media content display circuit via which the user is to access the media content, the time-based subscription data and the criteria set by the respective content providers, and to provide access to the filtered media content via the user interface.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, further including a fourth circuit module configured and arranged to respond to a request for accessing media content, received from a user via one of the user interfaces, by:

providing access to the requested media content by the user in response to the request identifying the media content to which access by the user is permitted;

operating with the second circuit module to provide subscription update information to the user via the one of the user interfaces, in response to the request identifying the media content to which access by the user is not permitted; and

providing access to the requested media content by the user in response to the user electing to update the user'"'"'s subscription via the provided subscription update information.