Method and apparatus for transmission, receipt and display of advertisements

• US 7,882,518 B2
• Filed: 04/03/2009
• Issued: 02/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: The DIRECTV Group, Inc. (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Brown, Jeffrey A., Finseth, Craig A., Hsiao, Philip E., Arsenault, Robert G., Leminh, Tam T.
• Primary Examiner(s): SHELEHEDA, JAMES R
• Application Number:
  US12/418,409
• Publication Number:
  US 20090193458A1
• Time in Patent Office: 669 Days
• Field of Search: 725/32, 725/37, 725/42
• US Class Current: 725/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0225 Avoiding frauds
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4316 for displaying supplemental content in a region of the screen, e.g. an advertisement in a separate window
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 Analytics of user selections, e.g. selection of programs or purchase activity monitoring of user selections in data processing systems G06F11/34; arrangements for monitoring the user's behaviour or opinions in broadcast systems H04H60/33
• 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 21/47 End-user applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/478 Supplemental services, e.g. displaying phone caller identification, shopping application
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/162 Authorising the user terminal, e.g. by paying; Registering the use of a subscription channel, e.g. billing

Abstract

An apparatus for the intelligent display of advertisements to a television services user includes a transmitter, a receiver and a display on which an electronic television program guide, television programs, and advertisements are displayed. Advertising and electronic program guide data are transmitted to a receiver used by one or more television service users. The electronic program guide data includes information characterizing television programs listed in an electronic program guide. Similarly, the advertising data includes advertisements and information characterizing the transmitted advertisements. A selection history contains information characterizing those programs selected by a user for viewing. Received advertisements are displayed to the user based upon a comparison between the information characterizing each of the plurality of advertisements and the information in the selection history.

Claims

1. A system for use in displaying advertisements within an electronic program guide, the system comprising:

a receiver configured to receive a broadcast signal comprising a plurality of advertisements having a set of advertisement attributes and a plurality of television programs having a set of program attributes, the receiver further configured to separate the plurality of advertisements from the plurality of television programs;

a memory coupled to the receiver to store the plurality of advertisements and the set of advertisement attributes;

a controller coupled to the receiver and the memory, the controller configured to store the set of program attributes in a selection history table in the memory, to identify a first advertisement based on a correlation between the set of program attributes stored in the selection history table and the advertisement attributes associated with the first advertisement, to identify one of a plurality of versions of the first advertisement based on a comparison of the correlation and a threshold value;

wherein the plurality of versions of the first advertisement comprises advertisements of different display sizes, and wherein the controller is to output for display the identified display size version of the first advertisement within the electronic program guide.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the selection history table includes a plurality of selection histories and each of the selection histories contains program attributes associated with television programs selected by one of a plurality of users.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the program attributes and the advertisement attributes include category information.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the program attributes and the advertisement attributes include key words and phrases.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the program attributes and the advertisement attributes include series information.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the program attributes and the advertisement attributes include group information.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the program attributes and the advertisement attributes include credits information.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the program attributes and the advertisement attributes include name information.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of advertisements includes an advertising object having attributes characterizing the content of the advertisement and wherein the advertising object points to a content object having advertising content.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the content object is a hyper text markup language object.

11. The system of claim 1, further comprising a remote control configured to communicate first and second television program selections by the user, wherein the receiver is configured to identify an elapsed time between the first television program selection and the second television program selection, and the controller is configured to store the program attributes associated with a first television program associated with the first television program selection if the elapsed time is within a predetermined time period.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the predetermined time period is greater than about 5 minutes and less than about 12 hours.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein a group of television programs from the plurality of television programs is selected by the user with a remote control, the controller stores the program attributes associated with the group of television programs in the selection history table, the controller calculates a similarity score for each of the plurality of advertisements stored in the memory based on the correlation between the advertisement attributes associated with each of the plurality of advertisements and the program attributes stored in the selection history table, the controller calculates a similarity score for a subsequently received advertisement based on a correlation between advertisement attributes associated with the subsequently received advertisement and the program attributes stored in the selection history table, and the controller identifies and replaces a stored advertisement having the lowest similarity score with the subsequently received advertisement.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein each of the plurality of advertisements comprises a plurality of advertisement images and wherein the controller selects an image from the plurality of advertisement images based on the similarity score for each of the plurality of advertisements.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the remote control comprises a set of image altering buttons that select and modify advertisement images.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein one of the image altering buttons causes an advertisement image to be enlarged.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein one of the image altering buttons causes an advertisement image to be reduced.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein one of the image altering buttons causes an advertisement image to be deleted.