Preservation and improvement of television advertising in digital environment

• US 7,720,351 B2
• Filed: 04/04/2005
• Issued: 05/18/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/04/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Stripe, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Gutman Levitan
• Inventors: Levitan, Gutman
• Primary Examiner(s): Banks Harold, Marsha D
• Assistant Examiner(s): KHAN, ASHER R
• Application Number:
  US11/096,423
• Publication Number:
  US 20060222322A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,870 Days
• Field of Search: 725/32, 725/34, 725/35, 725/22, 725/42, 386/68
• US Class Current: 386/250
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4325 by playing back content from the storage medium reproduction of recorded television signals H04N5/76; reproduction of recorded television signals H04N9/79
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/458 Scheduling content for creating a personalised stream, e.g. by combining a locally stored advertisement with an incoming stream; Updating operations, e.g. for OS modules ; time-related management operations arrangements for replacing or switching information during the broadcast or during the distribution H04H20/10
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4756 for rating content, e.g. scoring a recommended movie
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/63345 by transmitting keys key distribution for secret or secure communication H04L9/08; network support of key management H04L63/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8355 involving usage data, e.g. number of copies or viewings allowed
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/76 Television signal recording
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/163 by receiver means only

Abstract

A system for protecting commercials included in a digitally distributed and recorded video that minimizes user'"'"'s inconveniences resulting from restrictions imposed on playback of the video. The video is encrypted at the distributor side and playback of the encrypted video at the user side is limited in such a way that fast forward and reverse playing is not performed, and a lower limit is imposed on skip forward and backward so that only parts of video whose playing time is greater than the time of typical commercial break can be skipped. This arrangement prevents a user from selectively skipping commercials without missing pieces of program itself and thus discourages skipping when the user wants to watch an entire program, but still enables quick browsing before watching the entire program as well as moving fast to any part of the program for watching that part again.

Claims

1. A system for protecting commercials in a digitally distributed and recorded video that minimizes user'"'"'s inconveniences caused by restrictions imposed on playback of the video, comprising:

at the distributor side, a video server for encrypting video data of a video program and commercials included in the program in order to prevent playing the video data with a video player not provided with a proper encryption key; and

at the user side, a video player provided with the proper encryption key for playing the encrypted video data, wherein user'"'"'s control is limited in such a way that fast forward and reverse playing is not performed and skip forward and backward are restricted by imposing a lower limit on playing time of skipped video, said lower limit being greater than a time of typical commercial break so that a part of video whose playing time is greater than the time of typical commercial break can be skipped but a part of video whose playing time is lesser than or equal to the time of typical commercial break cannot be skipped;

thereby preventing a user from selectively skipping commercials without missing pieces of program itself and thus discouraging skipping when the user wants to watch an entire program, but still enabling quick browsing before watching the entire program as well as moving fast to any part of the program for watching that part again.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the video player for playing the encrypted video data is a hardware video player.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein the video player for playing the encrypted video data is a software video player.

4. The system of claim 3 further comprising a server at the distributor side, wherein the software video player is generated at the distributor side by the server and then electronically delivered to the user side.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the software video player has an expiration date in order to address the time-sensitive nature of advertising included in the video program.