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Interactive television system for implementing electronic polling or providing user-requested services based on identification of users or of remote control apparatuses which are employed by respective users to communicate with the system

  • US 5,721,583 A
  • Filed: 11/26/1996
  • Issued: 02/24/1998
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/27/1995
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. An interactive television system comprising a center apparatus, a plurality of terminal apparatuses, a plurality of display apparatus and a plurality of remote control apparatuses, said terminal apparatuses being respectively configured for bidirectional data communication with said center apparatus via a digital data communication network and each configured for receiving data by a wireless communication link from at least a corresponding one of said remote control apparatuses and for sending, to a corresponding one of said display apparatuses, data supplied thereto from said center apparatus;

  • whereineach said remote control apparatus comprises means for input of message data by a user, means for storing a predetermined remote control apparatus identifier, means for reading out and attaching at least said remote control apparatus identifier to said user message data to form a message data set, and means for sending said message data set via said wireless communication link to said terminal apparatus,each said terminal apparatus comprises means for storing a predetermined terminal apparatus identifier, means for receiving a message data set which is sent from a remote control apparatus, and means for sending said message data set to said center apparatus via said data communication network and means for receiving data sent from said center apparatus via said data communication network and for supplying at least a part of said received data to a corresponding one of said display apparatuses in a form suitable for display thereby,said center apparatus comprising means for storing data which relate each of said remote control apparatus identifiers to the terminal apparatus identifier of a corresponding one of said terminal apparatuses, means for receiving said message data set sent from a terminal apparatus, means for extracting said remote control apparatus identifier and said user message data from said message data set, means for generating resultant data in response to said user message data, and means for sending said resultant data via said network to the terminal apparatus having a terminal apparatus identifier which corresponds to the remote control apparatus identifier contained in said received message data set.

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