Broadcast response system

• US 20050287971A1
• Filed: 08/12/2005
• Published: 12/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: StratosAudio, Inc.
• Original Assignee: StratosAudio, Inc.
• Inventors: Christensen, Kelly M., Smyth, Thomas J., Thomas, Barry D.
• Granted Patent: US 7,773,939 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/186.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0267 Wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0605 Supply or demand aggregation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0613 Third-party assisted
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0641 Shopping interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/30 by a single channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/34 using an out-of-band subcarrier signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 20/93 which locates resources of other pieces of information, e.g. URL [Uniform Resource Locator]
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/13 radio data system/radio broadcast data system [RDS/RBDS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/30 characterised by the use of a return channel, e.g. for collecting users' opinions, for returning broadcast space/time information or for requesting data
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 2201/37 via a different channel
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/27 Arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/33 Arrangements for monitoring the users' behaviour or opinions
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/37 for identifying segments of broadcast information, e.g. scenes or extracting programme ID
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/61 Arrangements for services using the result of monitoring, identification or recognition covered by groups H04H60/29-H04H60/54
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/63 for services of sales data processing systems or methods specially adapted for electronic commerce G06Q30/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/74 using programme related information, e.g. title, composer or interpreter
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0803 Configuration setting
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/60 : Network streaming of media packets
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/611 : for multicast or broadcast systems for broadcast or conference H04L12/18; arrangements for broadcast or distribution combined with broadcast H04H20/00; arrangements for broadcast applications with a direct linkage to broadcast information or to broadcast space-time H04H60/00; selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS], H04W4/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2543 : Billing , e.g. for subscription services payment schemes, architectures or protocols G06Q20/00; e-commerce G06Q30/00; arrangements for billing for the use of broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/21
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/26258 : for generating a list of items to be played back in a given order, e.g. playlist, or scheduling item distribution according to such list retrieval of multimedia data based on playlists G06F16/40
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/274 : Storing end-user multimedia data in response to end-user request , e.g. network recorder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4622 : Retrieving content or additional data from different sources, e.g. from a broadcast channel and the Internet web site content organization and management for information retrieval from the Internet G06F16/958; transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82; stock exchange data over packet-switching network H04L12/1804; push services including data channel over packet-switching network H04L12/1859
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/472 : End-user interface for requesting content, additional data or services; End-user interface for interacting with content, e.g. for content reservation or setting reminders, for requesting event notification, for manipulating displayed content end-user interfaces for retrieving video data from a database G06F16/739; network services for supporting unicast streaming H04L65/612
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4722 : for requesting additional data associated with the content
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6118 : involving cable transmission, e.g. using a cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6181 : involving transmission via a mobile phone network arrangements for providing broadcast or conference services to substation in data switching networks in combination with wireless systems H04L12/189; wireless uplink channel access H04W74/004
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8113 : comprising music, e.g. song in MP3 format
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 : Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A broadcast response system provides, e.g., a radio broadcast listener with the ability to obtain media content such as music or speech while listening to the radio. The user can respond to items in the radio broadcast such as advertisements, fund raising drives, or interactive listener polls during the broadcast. Data such as song title and artist, author or publisher and the IP address for the location where the digital version of the content is stored, can be transmitted using, e.g., the RBDS/RDS data stream. A reference number representing song title and artist, author or publisher and the IP address for the location where the digital version of the content is stored can also be employed for ease of implementation. This reference number can reside in a lookup table to be accessed by broadcast response server.

Claims

1. An apparatus that processes a response to a data stream associated with a broadcast channel, comprising:

a first communication connection that receives information about a broadcast, the information comprising at least a segment identifier and a specific occurrence of a scheduled broadcast of at least one audio segment from a broadcaster;

a database having an entry for a unique reference tag corresponding to at least the segment identifier and the specific occurrence of the scheduled broadcast;

a data packet generation module that generates a data packet corresponding to at least the unique reference tag, a broadcast identifier and a database identifier, wherein the data packet is formatted for broadcast as a first signal stream together with an audio segment as a second signal stream;

a second communication connection that receives a response data packet transmitted from a user device, wherein the response data packet comprises information corresponding to a user identifier and the unique reference tag.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first signal stream is modulated.

3. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first signal stream is discrete from the second signal stream.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the first signal stream is broadcast over a subcarrier channel.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the response data packet indicates that the user received the audio segment but did not respond.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein the unique reference tag corresponds to the broadcaster source.