EP1071287A2
Expired / Lapsed
EP
⏱️ 0.0 years remaining
Television advertisement delivery system and method
Assignee: Nokia of America Corp
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Filing: 2000-07-11
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Granted: —
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Expires: 2020-07-11
Abstract
Abstract An advertisement delivery system employs an advertisement delivery service that discourages viewers from channel surfing. To this end, advertisers agree to pay at least a portion, if not all, of the consumer's premium video services charges, if in turn, the consumer agrees to watch the advertisements targeted to him/her as a function of an agreed upon interest profile. Viewers and advertisers subscribe to the advertisement delivery service, and deliver specific advertisements to a subscriber as a function of, for example, the particular household it is being delivered to, type of program, time of day, day of the week, a subscriber's interest profile or the like. To this end, television programming and advertisements are supplied to subscribers from a central video server that is informed when a subscriber has made a change in the channel being viewed. Additionally, the video server can insert point-to-point advertisements, i.e., insert different advertisements directed toward different viewers or groups of views, even if the program to be viewed is a broadcast program. Channel surfing is discouraged in one embodiment of the invention by supplying the same advertisement in the same commercial interval to all the subscribed channels for a particular subscriber. In another embodiment of the invention, when channel surfing is initiated while an advertisement is playing, the advertisement playout is "paused" until the subscriber returns to the original channel that was being viewed. Once the subscriber returns to the original channel, the playing out of the advertisement is automatically resumed. In still another embodiment of the invention, the subscriber is controllably inhibited from selecting a channel other than the one presently being viewed during the commercial intervals.
Inventors
- 👤 Donald Edgar Blahut
- 👤 Eugene J. Rosenthal
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-11-03 21:49
CPC Classifications
H; H04; H04N; H04N5/00; H04N5/76; H04N7/00; H04N7/08; H04N21/00; H04N21/40; H04N21/43; H04N21/442; H04N21/44213; H04N21/44222; H04N21/20; H04N21/23; H04N21/231; H04N21/23106; H04N21/25; H04N21/258; H04N21/25866; H04N21/25891; H04N21/266; H04N21/2668; H04N21/45; H04N21/4508; H04N21/4532; H04N21/462; H04N21/4622; H04N21/60; H04N21/65; H04N21/654; H04N21/6543; H04N21/80; H04N21/81; H04N21/812; H04N7/16; H04N7/173; H04N7/17309; H04N7/17336
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 20
Claim 1
Independent Claim
179 words
Apparatus (106) for use at a prescribed local location to control the
provision of video channels for supplying video programs and advertisements from a
source (101) at a remote location to one or more television sets (107-1 through 107-N)
at the prescribed local location, the apparatus being CHARACTERIZED BY at least one first means (401) associated with at least one television set
and being adapted to receive control messages associated with said at least one
television set; means (402) supplied with said received control messages and being
adapted to generate video channel selection messages including a subscriber
identification representation that indicates the advertisement service subscribed to by
the subscriber; means (402) for transmitting said video channel selection messages
toward said remote source; and at least one second means (403-1 through 403-M or 601-1 through 601-M)
programmed for receiving video channels including said video programs and
advertisements transmitted from said source in response to said transmitted video
channel selection messages and for supplying as an output a video channel carrying
interleaved video program signals and advertisements on said selected channel.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
35 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 1 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT said
channel selection message includes a representation indicating that said channel number
being received cannot be changed during intervals that said video advertisements are
being received.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
44 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 1 CHARACTERIZED BY means (603)
adapted to transmit a control message to a remote control unit associated with said
television set indicating that said video channel number cannot be changed during
interval that video advertisement signals are being received.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
50 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 1 CHARACTERIZED BY means (402)
adapted to store a representation of whether a selected prescribed video program or a
particular advertisement is being played, and said prescribed video program being one
of a prescribed group of video programs associated with said advertisement to be
played.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
64 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 1 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT each
of said control messages includes at least a first field for containing said subscriber
identification representation and a second field for containing a selected channel
number, and means (402) adapted to assign said at least one second means (403-1
through 403-M or 601-1 through 601-M) to said selected channel number in said control
message.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
167 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 5 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT said
at least one second means (403-1 through 403-M or 601-1 through 601-M) includes at
least one means (404) adapted to store a channel representation associated with said
selected channel number and an advertisement representation associated with one or
more advertisements to be received, and said at least second means includes means
(405) responsive to said stored video channel representation and advertisement
representation and being adapted to filter from a received digital signal compressed
video signals carried by said channel number and compressed advertisement video
signals, means (406) adapted to decode said compressed digital video signals and said
compressed digital advertisement signals to generate an analog video signal version of
said video program signal and an analog video signal version of said one or more video
advertisements, means (407) adapted to encode the analog video signals into NSTC
video signal form and means for converting the frequency of the NSTC video signal to a
prescribed video channel frequency.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
123 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 6 wherein said selected channel
carrying said compressed digital video signals is supplied in asynchronous transfer
mode (ATM) cells in an ATM virtual circuit (VC) assigned to the selected channel
number on which video programs are to be received and said compressed digital video
advertisement signals are supplied in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cells in an
ATM virtual circuit (VC) assigned to the video advertisements to be supplied, and
wherein said at least one second means further includes means (405) supplied with the
VCs assigned to the video program unit and being adapted to filter out the assigned VC
from said video program signals and the assigned VC for said video advertisement
signals from an incoming ATM signal.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
119 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 7 CHARACTERIZED BY a plurality
of said first means (401) associated with at least a prescribed number of said television
sets (107-1 through 107-N) and being adapted to receive control messages associated
with said at least prescribed number of television sets, a plurality of said second means
(403-1 through 403-M or 601-1 through 601-M) adapted to receive video channels
transmitted from said source in response to said control signals associated with said
prescribed number of television sets and means (409) adapted to combine said received
video channels from each of said plurality of video program units, a resulting combined
video channel signal to be supplied as an output to said plurality of television sets.
Claim 9
Independent Claim
150 words
A method for use at a prescribed local location to control the
provision of video channels for supplying video programs and advertisements from a
source at a remote location to one or more television sets at the prescribed local
location, the method being CHARACTERIZED BY receiving (via 401) control messages associated with said at least one
television set; in response to said received control messages, generating (via 402) video
channel selection messages including a subscriber identification representation that
indicates the advertisement service subscribed to by the subscriber; transmitting (via 402) said video channel selection messages toward said
remote source; and receiving (via 403-1 through 403-M or 601-1 through 601-M) video
channels including said video programs and advertisements transmitted from said
source in response to said transmitted video channel selection messages and for
supplying as an output a video channel carrying interleaved video program signals and
advertisements on said selected channel.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
122 words
Apparatus for use in a video server (101) at a remote location for
supplying video channels including video program signals and video advertisement
signals, the apparatus being CHARACTERIZED BY means (201, 302) adapted to store video program signals and video
advertisement signals; means (202) responsive to received video channel selection messages and
being adapted to control said means (201, 302) adapted to store to provide video
program signals and prescribed video advertisement signals; means (201, 202) adapted to insert said provided video advertisement
signals into prescribed intervals of said video program signals to be transported as a
video signal on a selected video channel; and means (300, 314-1 through 314-X) adapted to supply an output video
signal on said selected video channel.
Claim 11
Dependent Claim
46 words
Apparatus as defined in claims 10 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT
said received channel selection message includes a representation indicating that said
channel number to be supplied as an output cannot be changed during intervals that said
video advertisement signals are being inserted into said video program signals.
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
45 words
Apparatus as defined in claims 10 CHARACTERIZED IN THAT
said means (201, 202) adapted to control controls insertion of said video advertisement
signals so that they are inserted into said prescribed intervals of all video program
signals to be transported on all selected video channels.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
26 words
Apparatus as defined in claims 10 CHARACTERIZED BY means
(201, 202) adapted to controllably inhibit transmission of said video program signals
and/or said video advertisement signals.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
52 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 12 CHARACTERIZED BY said
means (202) adapted to control, in response to a change of video channel message to a
new channel, being adapted to control said means adapted to insert to insert said video
advertisement signal in a program to be transported by said new channel.
Claim 15
Dependent Claim
36 words
Apparatus as defined in claims 10 CHARACTERIZED BY a
plurality of encoders (203-1 through 203-Y) adapted to encode video program signals
and video advertisement signals in digital form for storage in said storage means (201,
302).
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
28 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 15 CHARACTERIZED BY said
encoders being adapted to encode said video program signals and said video
advertisement signals in a compressed digital form.
Claim 17
Dependent Claim
80 words
Apparatus as defined in claim 16 CHARACTERIZED BY said
selected channel carrying said compressed digital video signals being supplied as an
output in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cells in an ATM virtual circuit (VC)
assigned to the selected channel number on which video programs are to be received
and said compressed digital video advertisement signals are suppiied as an output in
asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) cells in an ATM virtual circuit (VC) assigned to the
video advertisements to be supplied.
Claim 18
Independent Claim
111 words
A method for use in a video server (101) at a remote location for
supplying video channels including video program signals and video advertisement
signals, the method being CHARACTERIZED BY storing (via 201, 302) video program signals and video advertisement
signals; in response to received video channel selection messages, controllably
supplying (via 202) from storage (302) video program signals and prescribed video
advertisement signals; controllably inserting (via 201, 202) said supplied video advertisement
signals into prescribed intervals of said video program signals to be transported as a
video signal on a selected video channel; and supplying (via 300, 314-1 through 314-X) as an output video signal on
said selected video channel.
Claim 19
Dependent Claim
48 words
Apparatus comprising a video controller (106) at a local location and
a video server (101) at a remote location, said video controller being apparatus as
defined in any of claims 1 through 8 and said video server being apparatus as defined in
any of claims 9 through 17.
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
39 words
A method comprising carrying out a method as defined in claim 9 in
a video controller (106) at a local location and a method as claimed in claim 18 in a
video server (101) located at a remote location.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
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