Method and apparatus for customized rendering of commercials
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method comprising:
- receiving entertainment programming broadcast to a user at a user set-top box;
receiving commercials broadcast to a user at a user set-top box, the commercials having characteristics;
saving at least a portion of the broadcast commercials at the user set-top box for selectively rendering later;
gathering user characteristics at the set-top box and associating them with a user of the set-top box;
computing interest potential indices for the saved commercials at the set-top box by comparing the gathered user characteristics associated with the user against the characteristics of the respective commercial and adding up the number of matching characteristics, the total number of matching characteristics for a particular commercial and a particular user providing the interest potential index for that particular commercial and user combination;
saving the computed interest potential indices for the user in association with each respective saved commercial at the user set-top box;
selecting saved commercials in accordance with the saved computed interest potential indices; and
rendering the entertainment programming broadcast interposed with the selected saved commercials to the user.
0 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An entertainment system receives entertainment programming interposed with commercials. The entertainment system selectively renders the commercial in accordance with characteristics associated with a user of the entertainment programming. In one embodiment, the entertainment system selectively renders a selected one among multiple received versions of a commercial. In another embodiment, the entertainment system selectively renders a selected one among multiple received commercials.
-
Citations
33 Claims
-
1. A method comprising:
-
receiving entertainment programming broadcast to a user at a user set-top box; receiving commercials broadcast to a user at a user set-top box, the commercials having characteristics; saving at least a portion of the broadcast commercials at the user set-top box for selectively rendering later; gathering user characteristics at the set-top box and associating them with a user of the set-top box; computing interest potential indices for the saved commercials at the set-top box by comparing the gathered user characteristics associated with the user against the characteristics of the respective commercial and adding up the number of matching characteristics, the total number of matching characteristics for a particular commercial and a particular user providing the interest potential index for that particular commercial and user combination; saving the computed interest potential indices for the user in association with each respective saved commercial at the user set-top box; selecting saved commercials in accordance with the saved computed interest potential indices; and rendering the entertainment programming broadcast interposed with the selected saved commercials to the user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 30)
-
-
11. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon data representing sequences of instructions which, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform operations comprising:
-
receiving entertainment programming broadcast to a user at a user set-top box; receiving commercials broadcast to a user at a user set-top box, the commercials having characteristics; saving at least a portion of the broadcast commercials at the user set-top box for selectively rendering later; gathering user characteristics at the set-top box and associating them with a user of the set-top box; computing interest potential indices for the saved commercials at the set-top box by comparing the gathered user characteristics associated with the user against the characteristics of the respective commercial and adding up the number of matching characteristics, the total number of matching characteristics for a particular commercial and a particular user providing the interest potential index for that particular commercial and user combination; saving the computed interest potential indices for the user in association with each respective saved commercial at the user set-top box; selecting saved commercials in accordance with the saved computed interest potential indices; and rendering the entertainment programming broadcast interposed with the selected saved commercials to the user. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 31)
-
-
17. An apparatus comprising:
-
means for receiving entertainment programming broadcast to a user at a user set-top box; means for receiving commercials broadcast to a user at a user set-top box, the commercials having characteristics; means for saving at least a portion of the broadcast commercials at the user set-top box for selectively rendering later; means for gathering user characteristics at the set-top box and associating them with a user of the set-top box; means for computing interest potential indices for the saved commercials at the set-top box by comparing the gathered user characteristics associated with the user against the characteristics of the respective commercial and adding up the number of matching characteristics, the total number of matching characteristics for a particular commercial and a particular user providing the interest potential index for that particular commercial and user combination, using the gathered user characteristics associated with the user and the characteristics of the respective commercial; means for saving the computed interest potential indices for the user in association with each respective saved commercial at the user set-top box; selecting saved commercials in accordance with the saved computed interest potential indices; and means for rendering the entertainment programming broadcast interposed with the selected saved commercials to the user. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 32)
-
-
25. An entertainment system comprising:
-
a user characteristics subsystem at a set-top box to gather user characteristics at a user set-top box, to associate them with a user, and to supply the gathered characteristics; a rendering subsystem at the set-top box coupled to the user characteristics subsystem to compute interest potential indices for a plurality of received and saved commercials using the gathered user characteristics and the characteristics of the respective commercial by adding up the number of matching characteristics, the total number of matching characteristics for a particular commercial and a particular user providing the interest potential index for that particular commercial and user combination, to select saved commercials in accordance with the computed saved interest potential indices, and to render entertainment programming to the user including saved commercials interposed in the entertainment programming, the commercials being rendered selectively in accordance with the interest potential indices so that commercials with the greatest likelihood of interest to the user are selected for rendering; and a storage subsystem at the set-top box to save at least a portion of the received commercials for later selective rendering by the rendering subsystem and to save the computed interest potential indices for the user in association with each respective saved commercial. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29, 33)
-
Specification