User preference information structure having multiple hierarchical structure and method for providing multimedia information using the same

• US 7,296,064 B2
• Filed: 05/26/2005
• Issued: 11/13/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Original Assignee: LG Electronics, Inc. (LG Corporation)
• Inventors: Yoon, Kyoung Ro, Jun, Sung Bae, Song, Jung Min
• Primary Examiner(s): DUONG, OANH L
• Application Number:
  US11/137,455
• Publication Number:
  US 20050216460A1
• Time in Patent Office: 901 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/217, 709/219, 709/224, 709/232, 707/6, 707/104.1, 725/46, 725/47
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/235 Processing of additional data, e.g. scrambling of additional data or processing content descriptors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/25883 being end-user demographical data, e.g. age, family status or address arrangements for identifying locations of users in broadcast systems H04H60/52
• 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 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4532 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 21/454 Content or additional data filtering, e.g. blocking advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4667 Processing of monitored end-user data, e.g. trend analysis based on the log file of viewer selections
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4755 for defining user preferences, e.g. favourite actors or genre retrieval personalisation and generation of user profiles for the retrieval of video data G06F16/739; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access
• 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

A user preference information structure having a multiple hierarchical structure in which an information is provided to a user according to a user preference in a multi-media environment having an information provider and an information user, that can include user use information by using information desired by the user; user preference information of information desired by the user; and individual user preference information that is differently set depending on situations in which the user is put and positioned in a sub-tree of the user preference information. The hierarchical data structure is able to provide the user preference for providing information desired by the user is provided depending on the environment, based on which various information can be provided.

Claims

1. A method implemented by an apparatus for processing multimedia content and user preferences pertaining to multimedia consumption, the method comprising:

storing, in a multiple hierarchical data structure, personal information to identify a user;

storing, in the multiple hierarchical data structure, user preference information of said identified user, wherein the user preference information includes a hierarchical tree structure of preference items, and each of said preference items has a corresponding preference value configured to indicate preference of multimedia information of the identified user in searching and recommending the mulitmedia content for the identified user, wherein said each of said preference items and the corresponding preference value are described in a respective element in the hierarchical tree structure and wherein at least one of said preference items includes a preference condition which applies to the at least one of said preference items and the corresponding preference value is set according to the preference condition, and the preference condition includes a location at which the multimedia content is consumed;

storing, in the multiple hierarchical data structure, a usage history to record events of the multimedia consumption of the identified user, wherein the usage history specifies the preference condition, a user action type, an identifier of the multimedia content, and a user action time for each of the recorded events, wherein the user action time specifies when each of the recorded events happened and the user action type specifies a type of each of the recorded events from a group of user action types that include pause and fast forward;

updating the at least one of said preference items in the hierarchical tree structure based on the usage history, wherein updating the at least one of said preference items includes altering the corresponding preference value based at least in part on a number of uses of the multimedia information corresponding to the at least one of said preference items; and

searching and recommending the multimedia content for the identified user using the updated preference item and the altered corresponding preference value.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the personal information includes a unique identifier which can be used to identify said user.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein one or more of said preference items have the corresponding preference value set to represent the user'"'"'s non-preference.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein each of said preference items corresponds to a piece of description information about the multimedia content.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the usage history is classified according to the user action times.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the usage history is classified by the user action types.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein the group of user action types further include review and stop.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the usage history specifies the preference condition by including information indicating where the recorded events happened.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein updating the at least one of said preference items includes altering the corresponding preference value based on user input.

10. A computer program product comprising instructions tangibly embodied in a machine readable storage medium to cause an apparatus for processing multimedia content and user preferences pertaining to multimedia consumption to perform operations comprising:

storing, in a multiple hierarchical data structure, personal information to identify a user;

storing, in the multiple hierarchical data structure, user preference information of said identified user, wherein the user preference information includes a hierarchical tree structure of preference items, and each of said preference items has a corresponding preference value configured to indicate preference of multimedia information of the identified user in searching and recommending multimedia content for the identified user, wherein said each of said preference items and the corresponding preference value are described in a respective element in the hierarchical tree structure and wherein at least one of said preference items includes a preference condition which applies to the at least one of said preference items and the corresponding preference value is set according to the preference condition, and the preference condition includes a location at which the multimedia content is consumed;

storing, in the multiple hierarchical data structure, a usage history to record events of the multimedia consumption of the identified user, wherein the usage history specifies the preference condition, a user action type, an identifier of the multimedia content, and a respective user action time for each of the recorded events, wherein the user action time specifies when each of the recorded events happened and the user action type specifies a type of each of the recorded events from a group of user action types that include pause and fast forward;

updating the at least one of said preference items in the hierarchical tree structure based on the usage history, wherein updating the at least one of said preference items includes altering the corresponding preference value based at least in part on a number of uses of the multimedia information corresponding to the at least one of said preference items; and

searching and recommending the multimedia content for the identified user using the updated preference item and the altered corresponding preference value.

11. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the personal information includes a unique identifier which can be used to identify said user.

12. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein one or more of said preference items have the corresponding preference value set to represent the user'"'"'s non-preference.

13. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein each of said preference items corresponds to a piece of description information about the multimedia content.

14. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the usage history is classified according to the user action times.

15. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the usage history is classified by the user action types.

16. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the group of user action types further include review, and stop.

17. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein the usage history specifies the preference condition by including information indicating where the recorded events happened.

18. The computer program product of claim 10, wherein updating the at least one of said preference items includes altering the corresponding preference value based on user input.