Interactive product placement system and method therefor

• US 9,338,499 B2
• Filed: 07/24/2015
• Issued: 05/10/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AiBUY Holdco, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cinsay Incorporated
• Inventors: Briggs, Christian, McBurnett, Heath, Galindo, Delfino Jr., Knuth, Freddy
• Primary Examiner(s): CORBO, NICHOLAS T
• Application Number:
  US14/808,768
• Publication Number:
  US 20160029090A1
• Time in Patent Office: 291 Days
• Field of Search: 725 32- 36
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/237 Communication with additional data server
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2393 involving handling client requests scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests H04L67/60
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2542 for selling goods, e.g. TV shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26603 for automatically generating descriptors from content, e.g. when it is not made available by its provider, using content analysis techniques
• 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 21/435 Processing of additional data, e.g. decrypting of additional data, reconstructing software from modules extracted from the transport stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44222 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 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47217 for controlling playback functions for recorded or on-demand content, e.g. using progress bars, mode or play-point indicators or bookmarks specific graphical features in visual interfaces H04N21/4312
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4725 using interactive regions of the image, e.g. hot spots details of information retrieval from the Internet by using URLs G06F16/955; processing chained hypermedia data for information retrieval G06F16/94
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47815 Electronic shopping payment schemes, payment architectures or payment protocols for electronic shopping systems G06Q20/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8133 specifically related to the content, e.g. biography of the actors in a movie, detailed information about an article seen in a video program
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8455 involving pointers to the content, e.g. pointers to the I-frames of the video stream
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8545 for generating interactive applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8547 involving timestamps for synchronizing content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/858 Linking data to content, e.g. by linking an URL to a video object, by creating a hotspot

Abstract

A method for presenting advertisements for commercial products in video productions, whereby the commercial product is placed in the video production as an element of the video production. A viewer is enabled to interact with the video production to select the product. Information is then displayed about the selected product; and the viewer is enabled to purchase the selected product.

Claims

1. A method for advertising in video productions, the method comprising:

transmitting, from one or more servers, a video production to a video player, the transmitted video production (1) associated with one or more products or services displayed as part of the video production when the video production is displayed to a user and (2) having a plurality of predefined cue points, each of the pre-defined cue points representing a respective elapsed time of playback;

wherein the video player is configured to display the video production; and

wherein the video player is configured, in response to a triggering of at least one of the plurality of predefined cue points, to display in a time line of the video player at least one of;

a visual calling cue point for an advertisement related to the one or more products or services and a visual representation of the advertisement being configured to, upon user interaction, display further information about the one or more products or services, the further information not previously displayed to the user during playback of the video production.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the further information about the one or more products or services is displayed as an overlay.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the overlay partially obscures display of the video production.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the overlay is displayed abutting at least one edge of a displayable area of the video production.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the further information about the one or more products or services facilitates purchase of the one or more products or services.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least some of the further information about the one or more products or services is displayed as a transparent overlay.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the overlay is displayed adjacent at least one edge of a displayable area of the video production.

8. A non-transitory processor-readable medium storing code representing instructions to be executed by at least one processor, the code comprising code to:

transmit, from at least one server, a video production to a video player, the transmitted video production associated with one or more products displayed as part of the display of the video production and having a plurality of predefined cue points, each predefined cue point from the plurality of predefined cue points representing a respective elapsed time of display of the video production, the video player configured to;

display the video production to a user, and

in response to a triggering of at least one predefined cue point from the plurality of predefined cue points during the display of the video production, display in a time line at least one of;

a visual calling cue point for an advertisement related to the one or more products and a visual representation of the advertisement that is configured to, upon user interaction, display additional information about the one or more products, the additional information having not previously been displayed to the user during the display of the video production.

9. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 8, wherein at least some of the additional information about the one or more products is displayed as an overlay.

10. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the overlay obscures a portion of the displayed video production.

11. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 9, wherein the overlay is displayed adjacent at least one edge of a displayable area of the video production.

12. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 8, wherein at least some of the additional information about the one or more products is configured to enable purchase of the one or more products by the user.

13. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 8, wherein at least some of the additional information about the one or more products is displayed as a transparent overlay.

14. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the overlay is displayed abutting at least one edge of a displayable area of the video production.

15. A method, comprising:

transmitting, from a plurality of servers, a video production to a compute device that is configured to display the video production, the transmitted video production having at least one product or service displayed as part of the video production when the video production is displayed to a user and having a plurality of predefined cue points, each predefined cue point from the plurality of pre-defined cue points representing a respective elapsed time of display of the video production; and

in response to a triggering of at least one predefined cue point from the plurality of predefined cue points during the display of the video production, the compute device displays at least one of a visual calling cue point for an advertisement related to the at least one product or service and a visual representation of the advertisement that is configured to, upon user interaction, display further information about the at least one product or service, the further information not previously displayed to the user during the display of the video production.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein at least some of the further information about the at least one product or service is displayed as an overlay.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the overlay partially obscures display of the video production.

18. The method of claim 16, wherein the overlay is displayed adjacent at least one edge of a displayable area of the video production.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein at least some of the further information about the at least one product or service enables the user to purchase the at least one product or service.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein at least some of the further information about the at least one product or service is displayed as a transparent overlay.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein, when displayed, the overlay abuts at least one edge of a displayable area of the video production.