System and method for the delivery of electronic books

• US 7,020,663 B2
• Filed: 02/08/2002
• Issued: 03/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2001
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: George M. Hay
• Original Assignee: George M. Hay
• Inventors: Rasmussen, Gerald, Hay, George M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gaffin, Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): ABEL JALIL, NEVEEN
• Application Number:
  US10/067,976
• Publication Number:
  US 20020184189A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,509 Days
• Field of Search: 412/1, 713/1, 715/526, 715/500.1, 345/727, 704/260
• US Class Current: 434/317
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/20 Education
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99943 Generating database or data structure, e.g. via user interface
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

An electronic book on a computer readable medium, e.g., a CD or the like, has “real-life” pre-recorded audio (preferably, in MP3 format) and visual text (preferably, in RTF format) seamlessly linked together via a linking file (preferably, in XML format) such that a reader can switch back and forth “at will” between visually reading on a computer display screen and/or listening to the book being read aloud by an actual narrator. The computer readable medium includes a reader program installed thereon and an automatic installation program. A novel process for creating the electronic book includes a creator program that may have a similar graphical user interface to the reader program. The electronic book may combine advantages of physical hard-cover books with new e-reading functionality developed by the present inventor.

Claims

1. A computer-readable-medium-electronic-book assembly, comprising:

a) a portable physical container for housing a computer readable medium;

b) a pre-recorded audio narration file of substantially an entire book stored on a single computer readable medium;

c) an electronic text file of substantially the entire book stored on said computer readable medium;

d) a synchronization file linking time signatures of the pre-recorded audio narration with locations in the electronic text stored on said computer readable medium;

e) a reader program adapted to cause a computer to display text of the book, to play the pre-recorded audio narration of the book, and to allow a user to link there-between as desired using the linking file stored on said computer readable medium;

f) an automatic installation program to automatically install the reader software upon placement of the computer readable medium within a computer stored on said computer readable medium;

g) said container housing said computer readable medium, said container having a picture that is visible from a front surface thereof that is substantially the same as that on a hard-cover copy of the book, and having a spine from which is visible a title of the book and/or the author'"'"'s name;

h) wherein said pre-recorded audio narration has a recorded audio narration of an actual human voice;

i) wherein said reader program is configured such that when the pre-recorded audio narration is played, a corresponding page of text is concurrently displayed in a fixed non-scrolling condition;

j) wherein said reader program is configured such that when the pre-recorded audio narration of the book is played and said corresponding page of text is concurrently displayed in said fixed non-scrolling condition, a corresponding segment of the text for which the pre-recorded audio narration is concurrently played is highlighted in such a manner that the highlighting moves downward along the corresponding fixed non-scrolling page of text as the audio narration of an actual human voice is played;

k) wherein said reader program is configured such that upon the pre-recorded audio narration of the book and the highlighting reaching at or near a last line of text displayed, the display is changed such that a subsequent page of text will be displayed and the highlighted text will commence proximate an upper portion of the subsequent page of newly displayed text;

l) wherein said reader program is configured such that a two-page display of text can be presented with two pages in a side-by-side relationship, and wherein when the pre-recorded audio narration of the book is played, a corresponding segment of the text for which the pre-recorded audio narration is concurrently played is highlighted in such a manner that the highlighting moves downward along the corresponding page of text as the audio narration is played first from a top to a bottom of the left-side page and then from a top to a bottom of the right-side page, and wherein the two-page display is then changed such that a new two-page display of text is presented;

m) wherein said reader program is configured to present said two-page display in a manner to be similar to an open book with a gutter graphically displayed in a middle between said two pages to simulate a physical book;

n) wherein said reader software is adapted to concurrently display an image of a book with two peripheral side edge region (310A and 310C) located on left and right sides of the book substantially parallel to said gutter to further simulate side edges of pages in a physical book;

o) wherein said computer readable medium is a single CD;

p) wherein said reader program is adapted to create a personal file that contains personal information related to a user;

g) wherein said personal file includes information related to bookmarks;

r) wherein said reader software is adapted to enable the personal file to be saved to a digital data storage device;

s) wherein said reader software is adapted to create a library of electronic books, wherein said library includes electronic books stored on a particular computer or electronic books that are not stored on the computer but that may be accessible to a user.

2. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said audio is contained within an MP3 compression format.

3. The assembly of claim 2, wherein said text is in an RTF format.

4. The assembly of claim 3, wherein said linking file is an XML file.

5. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said reader program is adapted to create a personal XML file that contains personal information related to a user.

6. The assembly of claim 5, wherein said personal XML file includes information related to bookmarks.

7. The assembly of claim 5, wherein said personal file includes information related to annotations.

8. The assembly of claim 5, wherein said personal file includes information related to highlighting.

9. The assembly of claim 5, wherein said reader software is adapted to save the personal file to a digital data storage device.

10. The assembly of claim 5, wherein said reader software is adapted to save the personal file upon the computer readable medium.

11. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said computer readable medium includes only read-only memory.

12. The assembly of claim 1, wherein at least said audio and text portions of said computer readable medium are contained within read-only memory.

13. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said computer readable medium includes portions that are write-able.

14. The assembly of claim 13, wherein the reader software is adapted to create a personal file and to save the same in said write-able portion of said computer readable medium, wherein said personal file includes bookmarks and/or annotations.

15. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said audio and text portions are adapted such as to prevent copying thereof.

16. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said container is dimensioned such that a height and front-width are substantially the same as that of a standard paper-back book.

17. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said container is dimensioned such that it has a height of between about 6 and 9 includes and a front-width of between about 4 and 6 inches.

18. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said reader software is adapted to create a library, wherein said library includes electronic books stored on a particular computer and electronic books that are not stored on the computer but that are accessible to a user.

19. A method of creating the assembly of claim 1, comprising:

a) obtaining a raw audio recording file of a human narration of a book;

b) audio editing the audio file;

c) segmenting the audio file;

d) converting the segmented files into a compressed format;

e) obtaining an electronic format text version of said book;

f) separating the text version of the book into multiple documents;

g) using a creator program at an editor'"'"'s station;

playing the audio obtained in step e);

concurrently viewing text obtained in step g);

creating a synchronization file linking the audio and text files;

h) publishing the audio files from step d) for said pre-recorded audio narration file, the electronic text documents of step f) for said electronic text file, the synchronization file of step g) for said synchronization file, said reader program and said automatic installation program to said computer readable medium so as to create a computer-readable-medium-electronic-book.

20. The assembly of claim 1, wherein said computer readable medium contains a plurality of literary works that are distributed together on the medium.

21. The assembly of claim 1, further including means for presenting promotional information or advertisements.

22. The assembly of claim 1, further including means for downloading copies, versions or upgrades of software via the Internet or another public network.

23. The assembly of claim 1, further including at least one video clip on said computer readable medium.

24. The assembly of claim 1, wherein one or more aspect of audio sounds are maintained separately from a narrator'"'"'s voice such that during use, at least some of the background sounds may be managed separately from the narrator'"'"'s voice.