System for Collecting Computer Application Usage Data from a Plurality of Client Devices

• US 20100125657A1
• Filed: 11/14/2008
• Published: 05/20/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Interpret LLC
• Original Assignee: Interpret LLC
• Inventors: Klein, David E., Siddique, Ahmed A., Dowling, Michael, Noorzay, Farzana, Rominger, Edric S.
• Granted Patent: US 8,713,157 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3051 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the configuration of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring the presence of processing resources, peripherals, I/O links, software programs verification or detection of system hardware configuration G06F11/2247
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3409 for performance assessment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3495 for systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold

Abstract

A system and method for collecting computer application usage data from a plurality of client devices. The system may include a monitoring program executable on each of the plurality of client devices. The monitoring program may be configured to receive from a server via a computer network monitoring data including one or more application identifiers, and to identify one or more target application programs executed on the client device as matching one of the identifiers. The monitoring program may further be configured to gather usage data for the target application program over a period of time, and send a message back to the server including the usage data. Reports may be generated based on the usage data.

Claims

1. A data collection system comprising:

a monitoring program executable on each of a plurality of client devices, the monitoring program being configured to receive from a server via a computer network monitoring data including one or more application identifiers, identify one or more target application programs executed on the client device as matching one of the identifiers, gather usage data for the target application program over a period of time, and send a message back to the server including the usage data.

2. The data collection system of claim 1, wherein the target application programs are computer games.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitoring program includes a communication module configured to request the monitoring data from the server, to receive the monitoring data from the server in response to the request, and to send the message back to the server including the usage data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitoring program includes a data collection module configured to gather the usage data.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more identifiers are received by the monitoring program in a target application program list from the server;

and

wherein the monitoring program includes an identification module configured to identify the one or more target application programs executed on the client device as matching one of the identifiers in the target application program list.

6. The data collection system of claim 5, wherein the identification module is configured to identify a target application program executed on the client device as a computer game, based on one or more predetermined identification rules.

7. The data collection system of claim 6, wherein the predetermined identification rules instruct the monitoring program to monitor a hardware configuration of the client device.

8. The data collection system of claim 6, wherein the predetermined identification rules instruct the monitoring program to monitor a software configuration of the client device.

9. The data collection system of claim 7, wherein software configuration is monitored by monitoring operating system attributes and/or network communications attributes.

10. The data collection system of claim 9, operating system attributes include operating system name, build number, major service pack version and/or minor service pack version.

11. The data collection system of claim 9, wherein network communications attributes include the presence and bandwidth of a network connection, and/or a network communications history of uniform resource locators or domains browed by target application programs on the client device.

12. The data collection system of claim 6, wherein the predetermined identification rules and/or the target application program list are updated periodically by the server, the periodic update being initiated by the monitoring program executed on the client device.

13. A data collection system comprising:

a server configured to store one or more predetermined identification rules and/or a target application program list including one or more application identifiers; and

a monitoring program downloadable from the server and executable on each of a plurality of client devices, the monitoring program including;

a communication module configured to receive monitoring data including the one or more application identifiers and/or predetermined identification rules from the server via a computer network;

an identification module configured to identify one or more target application programs executed on the client device as matching one of the identifiers and/or one of the predetermined identification rules; and

a data collection module configured to gather usage data for the one or more target application programs over a period of time;

wherein the communication module is further configured to send a message back to the server including the usage data.

14. The data collection system of claim 13, wherein the target application programs are computer games.

15. A method for gathering data from a plurality of clients configured to communicate with a server via a computer network, the method comprising:

transmitting a monitoring program from a server to each of a plurality of client devices via a computer network;

sending monitoring data from the server to each of the plurality of client devices, the monitoring data including one or more application identifiers and/or predetermined identification rules from the server via a computer network, the monitoring program of each client device being configured to interpret the monitoring data to identify one or more target application programs executed on the respective client device as matching one of the identifiers and/or one of the predetermined identification rules, and to gather usage data for the one or more target application programs over a period of time; and

receiving the gathered usage data at the server from each of the plurality of clients.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising, at each of the plurality of client devices:

executing the monitoring program;

identifying one or more target application programs executed on the respective client device as matching one of the identifiers and/or one of the predetermined identification rules;

gathering usage data for the one or more target application programs over a period of time; and

sending the gathered usage data to the server.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the target application programs are computer games.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising generating an analysis report based on the usage data received from the plurality of clients.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the one or more application identifiers are included in a target application program list sent from the server to the client devices.

20. The method of claim 16, wherein the predetermined identification rules instruct the monitoring program to monitor a hardware configuration and/or a software configuration of the client device.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the hardware configuration is monitored by monitoring hardware parameters selected from the group consisting of processor attributes, video controller attributes, memory attributes, sound card attributes, network connection attributes, user input device attributes and usage, and display attributes;

and

wherein software configuration is monitored by monitoring operating system attributes and/or network communications attributes.

22. The method of claim 16 wherein the usage data is gathered at periodic intervals and/or each time client-server communication is made.