Interactive product placement system and method therefor

• US 9,351,032 B2
• Filed: 07/24/2015
• Issued: 05/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/30/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aibuy Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Cinsay Incorporated
• Inventors: Briggs, Christian, McBurnett, Heath, Galindo, Delfino Jr., Knuth, Freddy
• Primary Examiner(s): CORBO, NICHOLAS T
• Application Number:
  US14/808,831
• Publication Number:
  US 20160029072A1
• Time in Patent Office: 305 Days
• Field of Search: 725 32- 37
• 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 of advertising, the method comprising:

transmitting code configured to generate a user interface for a video production comprising a video portion that is not broken into segments by an interruptive advertisement, the user interface being capable of displaying content about one or more products or services, wherein the user interface is configured to;

display a timeline associated with the video portion;

display one or more visual calling cue points in the timeline; and

simultaneous with displaying the one or more visual calling cue points, display a representation of an advertisement associated with at least one of the one or more visual calling cue points in a location based on a displayed location of the at least one associated visual calling cue point in the timeline, wherein the representation of the advertisement is related to at least one of the one or more products or services and is configured to allow a user to retrieve further information not previously displayed about the at least one of the one or more products or services.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is further configured to display the representation of the advertisement as an overlay.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the overlay is displayed for a predetermined time.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the overlay is partially transparent.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is further configured to display at least some of the further information as an overlay.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the at least some of the further information displayed as an overlay is displayed for a predetermined time period.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the overlay is configured to be transparent in portions.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is further configured to facilitate submission of user information to a remote server to conduct a transaction.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the user interface is further configured to display the representation of the advertisement for a predetermined time period.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the representation of the advertisement is configured to expire after being displayed for the predetermined time period without receiving user input.

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

generate a user interface for a video production having a video portion that is not broken into segments by an interruptive advertisement and including displayable content about one or more products or services, the user interface configured to;

display a plurality of visual calling cue points associated with the video portion; and

simultaneous with display of at least one of the plurality of visual calling cue points, display of a representation of an advertisement associated with the at least one of the plurality of visual calling cue points in a location based on a location of the at least one associated visual calling cue point, the representation of the advertisement (1) related to at least one of the one or more products or services and (2) configured to display to a user, in response to user interaction with the user interface, further information about the at least one of the one or more products or services, the further information not previously displayed to the user by the user interface.

12. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the user interface is further configured to display the representation of the advertisement as an overlay.

13. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the overlay is configured to be transparent in portions.

14. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the user interface is further configured to display at least some of the further information as an overlay.

15. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the overlay is partially transparent.

16. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the overlay is configured to be displayed for a predetermined time period.

17. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the overlay is configured to expire after being displayed for the predetermined time period without receiving user input.

18. The non-transitory processor-readable medium of claim 11, wherein the user interface is further configured to enable the user to provide information to a remote server to conduct a transaction.