Television distributing system having latching program selector and debiting releasesignal

Claim 1

APPARATUS FOR RECEIVING PROGRAMS TRANSMITTED OVER A PAY-BROADCAST PROGRAM CHANNEL, COMPRISING MEANS TO REPRODUCE PROGRAMS RECEIVED ON SAID CHANNEL, PERSONALLYOPERABLE MEANS TO SET SAID REPRODUCING MEANS INTO A PROGRAM-REPRODUCING CONDITION WITH RESPECT TO SAID CHANNEL, DEBIT REGISTERING MEANS REPONSIVE TO A RECEIVED DEBITING SIGNAL CONTAINING QUANTITATIVELY DENOTIVE FEE INFORMATION TO REGISTER A DEBIT IN ACCORDANCE WITH SAID INFORMATION, CONDITIONING MEANS TO ESTABLISH AN ELECTRICAL PATH FOR ADMITTING SAID DEBITING SIGNAL TO OPERATE SAID DEBIT MEANS WHENEVER SAID REPRODUCING MEANS IS SET IN SAID REPRODUCING CONDITION, LATCH MEANS RETAINING SAID CONDITIONING MEANS IN SAID PATH-ESTABLISHING CONDITION, LATCH-RELEASING MEANS COUPLED TO SAID LATCH MEANS, AND MEANS APPLYING LATCH-RELEASING SIGNALS TO SAID LATCH-RELEASING MEANS, WHEREBY SAID DEBITING SIGNAL PATH ESTABLISHED BY SAID CONDITIONING MEANS IS INTERRUPTED ONLY ON RECEIPT OF SAID LATCH-RELEASING SIGNAL.