Management of ancillary content delivery and presentation

• US 8,763,090 B2
• Filed: 05/18/2010
• Issued: 06/24/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/11/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC (Sony Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Capati, Allister, Huang, Ennin
• Primary Examiner(s): Hoffman, Brandon
• Assistant Examiner(s): Anderson, Michael D
• Application Number:
  US12/782,678
• Publication Number:
  US 20110041161A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,498 Days
• Field of Search: 726/4, 725/23
• US Class Current: 726/4
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/352 involving special game server arrangements, e.g. regional servers connected to a national server or a plurality of servers managing partitions of the game world
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/61 using advertising information
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/65 automatically by game devices or servers from real world data, e.g. measurement in live racing competition
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/73 Authorising game programs or game devices, e.g. checking authenticity
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/75 Enforcing rules, e.g. detecting foul play or generating lists of cheating players
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 13/77 involving data related to game devices or game servers, e.g. configuration data, software version or amount of memory
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/535 for monitoring, e.g. of user parameters, terminal parameters, application parameters, network parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5506 using advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/552 for downloading to client devices, e.g. using OS version, hardware or software profile of the client device
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5573 player location
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/5586 for enforcing rights or rules, e.g. to prevent foul play
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/16 Combinations of two or more digital computers each having at least an arithmetic unit, a program unit and a register, e.g. for a simultaneous processing of several programs coordinating program control therefor G06F9/52; in regulating and control system G05B
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/435 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9535 Search customisation based on user profiles and personalisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/00 Digital computing or data processing equipment or methods, specially adapted for specific functions information retrieval, database structures or file system structures therefor G06F16/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/10 Protecting distributed programs or content, e.g. vending or licensing of copyrighted material protection in video systems or pay television H04N7/16 ; Digital rights management [DRM]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2101 Auditing as a secondary aspect
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2109 Game systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2135 : Metering
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2141 : Access rights, e.g. capability lists, access control lists, access tables, access matrices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2143 : Clearing memory, e.g. to prevent the data from being stolen
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/71 : Version control security arrangements therefor G06F21/57; Configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 : Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 : Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 : for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/01 : Protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 : based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/303 : Terminal profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 : involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/53 : using third party service providers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 : Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/56 : Provisioning of proxy services store-and-forward switching systems in data switching networks H04L12/54

Abstract

Embodiments of the present invention address delivery of content, including advertising, in an online or networked digital environment. Undesirable content or content that needs to be removed from the digital environment may be eliminated through invocation of a ‘kill switch’ that terminates further delivery of the aforementioned content. The ‘kill switch’ may also eliminate certain instantiations of that content already delivered to end-user client devices. In order to lessen the need for termination of content following delivery to the digital environment, content developers and content providers may view content scheduled for delivery in digital environment ‘mock ups’ prior to actual delivery. Content developers and content providers, too, may control certain attributes related to content scheduled for delivery to further obviate post-delivery termination or modification.

Claims

1. A method for managing ancillary content, the method comprising:

receiving a control parameter concerning the ancillary content, the control parameter specifying a target classification of end-user client devices, wherein the target classification is based on at least one demographic characteristic of a user associated with an end-user client device;

executing instructions stored in memory, wherein execution of the instructions by a processor;

determines that the end-user client device in a network possesses the specified target classification,

generates an instruction concerning control of the ancillary content in accordance with the control parameter; and

sending the instruction to the end-user client device determined to be associated with the specified target classification, wherein execution of the instruction by a processor of the end-user client device results in control of the ancillary content in accordance with the control parameter.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the control of the ancillary content includes designating the end-user client device as unauthorized to access the ancillary content.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the ancillary content was previously delivered to the end-user client device and wherein designating the end-user client device as unauthorized includes removing the previously delivered ancillary content from a digital environment associated with the end-user client device.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the ancillary content is not present on the end-user client device and wherein designating the end-user client device as unauthorized includes denying access requests sent from the end-user client device concerning the ancillary content.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the designation of the end-user client device as unauthorized further applies to new ancillary content designated as being related to the ancillary content in the request.

6. The method of claim 2, further comprising delivering the ancillary content to one or more recipient end-user client devices in the network, wherein delivering the ancillary content includes determining that each recipient end-user client device in the network is authorized to receive the ancillary content.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the control related to the ancillary content includes a restriction on ability of the end-user client device to conduct operations involving the ancillary content.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the control related to the ancillary content includes modifying a copy of the ancillary content stored at the end-user client device.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the control parameter specifies the ancillary content by reference to a tag associated with the ancillary content.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the control of the ancillary content includes reference to one or more rules, each rule associated with at least one tag.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the control of the ancillary content includes modifying a rule associated with the tag associated with the ancillary content.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the control of the ancillary content includes modifying a copy of the ancillary content stored at the end-user client device, wherein at least part of the ancillary content is replaced with replacement ancillary content.

13. A system for managing ancillary content, the system comprising:

one or more content servers, each content server hosting a store of ancillary content available to one or more end-user client devices in a network comprising a plurality of end-user client devices; and

a mediation server that;

receives a control parameter concerning ancillary content, the control parameter specifying a target classification of end-user client devices, wherein the target classification is based on at least one demographic characteristic of a user associated with an end-user client device,

determines that the end-user client device in the network possesses the specified target classification,

generates an instruction concerning control of the ancillary content in accordance with the control parameter, and

sends the instruction to the end-user client device determined to be associated with the specified target classification, wherein execution of the instruction by a processor of the end-user client device results in control of the ancillary content in accordance with the control parameter.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the mediation server further:

receives a request from an end-user client device in the network, the request concerning content;

authenticates the end-user client device as authorized to access the requested content; and

directs the end-user client device to connect to one of the content servers hosting the requested content, wherein the requested content is made accessible to the authorized end-user client device.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the mediation server further:

receives a request from an end-user client device in the network, the request concerning ancillary content hosted at one of the content servers;

determines that an end-user client device in the network is not authorized to access the requested content; and

denies the request for access to the requested content.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the mediation server redirects the end-user client device to replacement ancillary content hosted by one of the content servers.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the mediation server further responds to the control parameter by removing the specified ancillary content from the one or more content servers.

18. The system of claim 13, wherein the mediation server further responds to the control parameter by designating the end-user client device as unauthorized to access the specified ancillary content.

19. The system of claim 13, further comprising:

at least one other mediation server; and

a universe management server that assigns responsibilities among the mediation server and the at least one other mediation server.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the universe management server further modifies a rule enforced by one of the mediation servers.

21. The system of claim 19, the universe management server further:

receives a request from an authorized entity specifying ancillary content;

generates the control parameter based on the received request; and

sends the control parameter to the mediation server.

22. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium, having embodied thereon a program, the program including instructions executable to perform a method for managing ancillary content, the method comprising:

receiving a control parameter concerning the ancillary content, the control parameter specifying a target classification of end-user client devices, wherein the target classification is based on at least one demographic characteristic of a user associated with an end-user client device;

determining that the end-user client device in a network possesses the specified target classification;

generating an instruction concerning control of the ancillary content in accordance with the control parameter; and

sending the instruction to the end-user client device determined to possess the specified target characteristic, wherein execution of the instruction by a processor of the end-user client device results in control of the ancillary content in accordance with the control parameter.