System and method for providing supplementary interactive content

• US 9,167,208 B2
• Filed: 05/27/2008
• Issued: 10/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/07/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Your Choice Interactive, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Your Choice Interactive, Inc.
• Inventors: Pino, Angelo J. Jr., Sattar, Mohammed, Redling, Peter M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bruckart, Benjamin R
• Assistant Examiner(s): Bantamoi, Anthony
• Application Number:
  US12/127,602
• Publication Number:
  US 20080229352A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,702 Days
• Field of Search: 725/9, 725 60- 61
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• 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 67/55 Push-based network services
• 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 21/25891 being end-user preferences retrieval of video data in a video database based on user preferences G06F16/739; arrangements for recognizing users' preferences H04H60/46; user profiles in network data switching protocols H04L67/306; processing of user preferences or user profiles in wireless networks H04W8/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/2665 Gathering content from different sources, e.g. Internet and satellite
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47205 for manipulating displayed content, e.g. interacting with MPEG-4 objects, editing locally
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4758 for providing answers, e.g. voting
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4781 Games
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4784 receiving rewards
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4788 communicating with other users, e.g. chatting arrangements for providing for computer conferences, e.g. chat rooms, to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1813; distributed application using peer-to-peer [P2P] networks H04L67/104
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4882 for displaying messages, e.g. warnings, reminders arrangements for providing short real-time information to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1895
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6125 involving transmission via Internet transmission by internet of broadcast information H04H60/82
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8545 for generating interactive applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

A method and system for providing television programming content and interactive data services is provided. In one embodiment, the interactive content is displayed on the television concurrently with television programming content and facilitates game play between viewers. The game may be scored for each viewer based on selection data from the viewer and event data that is determined by events occurring in the television programming content. In addition, the interactive content may present a message that conveys an incentive to the viewer to take some action such as actuating a button when a particular commercial is presented thereby allowing the service provider and advertisers to determine how many, and which, viewers watched a particular commercial. In addition, the interactive content (including the incentives) can be presented to viewers when the programming content is stored on a digital video recorder and subsequently presented thereby presenting incentives to viewers to watch commercials that were recorded as part of the television programming content.

Claims

1. A method of providing mobile telephone communications, comprising:

storing a mobile telephone number in a memory for each of a plurality of users;

transmitting a text message to the mobile telephone of each of the plurality of users;

wherein the text message includes a request to reply to the text message during presentation of an identified commercial;

wherein said transmitting a text message comprises transmitting the text message prior to presentation of the identified commercial;

receiving a reply to the text message from the mobile telephone of a multitude of the users;

determining whether each received reply comprises a conforming reply;

wherein a conforming reply comprises a reply that is received during a broadcast of the identified commercial or within a predetermined time period following the broadcast of the identified commercial; and

for each user from which a conforming a reply is received, storing data of a conforming reply in memory in association with the mobile telephone number of the mobile telephone from which the reply was transmitted.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the identified commercial is identified in the text message by identifying a particular advertiser and wherein a product of the identified commercial is not identified in the text message.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the identified commercial is identified by identifying a particular product advertised in the identified commercial.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the text message conveys an incentive for replying to the text message during presentation of the identified commercial.