U.S. patent application number 12/816423 was filed with the patent office on 2010-10-07 for ensuring that advertisements are played.
Invention is credited to Michael Boyd, Eric C. Hannah.
Application Number | 20100257041 12/816423 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 42332703 |
Filed Date | 2010-10-07 |
United States Patent
Application |
20100257041 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Hannah; Eric C. ; et
al. |
October 7, 2010 |
Ensuring That Advertisements Are Played
Abstract
A system may confirm that advertising was played as originally
intended. For example, in one embodiment, a system may determine
that an advertisement was played as originally intended and in
return, a credit may be provided to the user. This credit may be
the ability to play content that the user wishes to play or the
credit may be in the form of rewards that are provided to the user,
as another example. Thus, the system determines whether the
advertisements are played correctly, for example, by detecting
watermarks encoded within the advertising, and in return, provides
indications that reward the user for playing the advertisement as
intended.
Inventors: |
Hannah; Eric C.; (Pebble
Beach, CA) ; Boyd; Michael; (Lakeport, CA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
TROP, PRUNER & HU, P.C.
1616 S. VOSS RD., SUITE 750
HOUSTON
TX
77057-2631
US
|
Family ID: |
42332703 |
Appl. No.: |
12/816423 |
Filed: |
June 16, 2010 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
09690512 |
Oct 17, 2000 |
7761327 |
|
|
12816423 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
705/14.19 ;
382/100; 705/14.47 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q 30/0207 20130101;
G06Q 20/206 20130101; G06Q 30/0217 20130101; G06Q 30/0241 20130101;
G06Q 30/0248 20130101; G06Q 30/02 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
705/14.19 ;
382/100; 705/14.47 |
International
Class: |
G06Q 30/00 20060101
G06Q030/00; G06T 7/00 20060101 G06T007/00 |
Claims
1. A system comprising: a processor-based device; and a watermark
detector coupled to said device, said watermark detector to detect
a watermark included with an advertisement and to control media
playback in response to detection of the watermark.
2. The system of claim 1 further including a storage coupled to
said device, said storage storing instructions that, if executed,
enable the processor-based device to monitor the watermark included
with the advertisement and accrue a credit after determining the
advertisement was played.
3. The system of claim 2 wherein said storage stores instructions
that, if executed, enable the device to allow access to
content.
4. The system of claim 2 wherein said storage stores instructions
that, if executed, enable the device to accrue a reward in return
for playing the advertisement.
5. The system of claim 1 wherein said watermark detector determines
whether an advertisement was played at a predetermined speed.
6. The system of claim 1 wherein said storage stores content for
subsequent replay.
7. A method comprising: monitoring a watermark included with an
advertisement; and controlling media play in response to monitoring
the watermark.
8. The method of claim 7 including determining that the
advertisement was played, based on the watermark.
9. The method of claim 7 including controlling operation of a media
player to play content based on a credit and to use said watermark
to accrue said credit.
10. An article comprising a medium storing instructions that, if
executed, enable a processor-based system to: monitor a watermark
included with an advertisement; and control operation of a media
player in response to monitoring the watermark.
11. The article of claim 10, said medium storing instructions to
control the media player to play content based on a credit and to
use said watermark to accrue said credit.
12. The article of claim 10 storing instructions that, if executed,
enable the processor-based system to determine that the
advertisement was played, based on the watermark.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application is a continuation of U.S. patent
application Ser. No. 09/690,512, filed on Oct. 17, 2000.
BACKGROUND
[0002] This invention relates generally to advertising insertion in
audio, video, game, or software content distribution systems.
[0003] Systems are available for distributing a wide variety of
content to users. In some cases, the users may select a particular
content they wish to play. In many cases, it is desirable to insert
commercials or advertisements into the content as the content is
selected.
[0004] In one model, in return for a given number of advertisement
viewings, the user may be entitled to play a certain amount of
content. Thus, it is important to ensure that the user actually
plays the advertising material.
[0005] A variety of stripping programs, fast forwarding functions,
muting and masking functions are available in digital playback
devices. The risk arises for advertisers that the users may avoid
actually playing the advertising material in a human understandable
way. If the advertising material is never played, it will have no
effect.
[0006] The net effect of such circumvention may be that free or low
cost content may not be made available. In other words, if
advertisers cannot be assured that the advertising will actually be
played (as opposed to being circumvented), they may be unwilling to
subsidize the electronic distribution of content.
[0007] Therefore, there is a need for a way to ensure that
advertising material inserted in content is actually played as
originally designed and intended by the advertiser.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0008] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the present
invention; and
[0009] FIG. 2 is a flow chart for software, in accordance with one
embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0010] Referring to FIG. 1, a processor-based system 10 may include
a media player 60 that plays electronic content. Electronic content
may include video such as television, audio, games, software, or
other media. The media player 60 may be, for example, a compact
disk player, a magnetic card reader, an MP-3 player, or a digital
video disk player, as examples.
[0011] The processor-based system 10 may be a conventional desktop
computer system, a set-top box, or a processor-based appliance, as
examples. The processor-based system 10 may include the media
player 60, a display system 54 for displaying visual material and a
sound system 56 for playing audio material.
[0012] The processor-based system 10 includes a processor 40
coupled to a host bus 42. The host bus 42 couples a north bridge
44, a system memory 48, and a level two or L2 cache 46.
[0013] The north bridge 44 is in turn coupled to a bus 50 that
couples to the display 54 through the display controller 52. The
display 54 may be a conventional computer monitor or it may be a
television receiver, as examples. Also coupled to the bus 50 is an
audio accelerator 58b. The audio accelerator 58b is coupled to a
digital-to-analog converter 26 that in turn is coupled to the sound
system 56. The sound system 56 may include speakers 16' and
16''.
[0014] Also, coupled to the bus 50 is a south bridge 62. The south
bridge 62 is coupled to hubs that in turn couple to the media
player 60 and a storage 66 such as a hard disk drive. Software 90
for implementing certain features of one embodiment of the present
invention may be stored on the storage 66.
[0015] Also coupled to the south bridge 62, is an additional bus
76. The bus 76 is in turn coupled to a serial input/output (SIO)
device 78 and a basic input/output system (BIOS) storage 88. The
bus 78 may be coupled to a keyboard 80, a modem 84, and other
peripheral devices 82, for example, for allowing games to be
played.
[0016] The modem 84 may allow the processor-based system 10 to be
coupled to a content distribution system such as the Internet. In
addition, content may be received through airwave broadcasts,
satellite systems, or cable television systems, as additional
examples. In each case, the content may be provided to the system
10 over any available transport.
[0017] Coupled to the digital-to-analog converter 26 is a watermark
detector 60. The watermark detector 60 detects whether watermarks
present in the content received from a content provider are
actually played as intended. For example, the watermark detector 60
may detect whether the watermarked material is played in full at
the predetermined play speed and is not otherwise muted, masked,
fast-forwarded or stripped from the content. The watermark detector
60 may be coupled to the media player 60 to control the play of
content on the media player 60. Thus, content may not be played
through the system 10 unless certain advertising material
containing a watermark is played as originally intended.
[0018] The watermark may be a faint signal that is embedded in the
advertising content, that is unstrippable and may not be degraded
without degrading the desired content to an unacceptable extent.
The faint signal may be designed to be undetectable by users.
Watermarks are commonly used with content to protect them from
being digitized or re-sampled in the output/analog domain for
resubmission to players as "copy always" material. Thus, watermarks
are traditionally used to prevent or reveal theft of proprietary
material.
[0019] These same watermarks may also be detected by the watermark
detector 60 to ensure that watermarked advertising material is
played as originally intended. Thus, advertising material that
includes a watermark with an appropriate security code may be
detected by the watermark detector 60. The watermark detector 60
may determine the fidelity of the watermark and the time when the
watermark is activated. The detector 60 may ensure that the
advertising material is not fast forwarded or otherwise
altered.
[0020] The watermark detector 60 may directly monitor the video or
audio input/output channels to ensure that the channels correctly
extract the advertising watermark if, and only if, the advertising
is played by the digital output channel at the proper rate and for
the duration of the advertising, with no extraneous masking. The
extracted advertising security code or watermark is then returned
to a media player application to allow decryption of the remaining
content by the media player 60.
[0021] Alternatively, the watermark may be utilized to accrue
digital coupons in return for playing the advertising. That is,
instead of only controlling the play of content, the detection of
the watermarks in the advertising may also be used to accrue
rewards or benefits to users who actually play the advertisements
as originally designed.
[0022] As still another example, the watermark may be extracted and
a security code may be parsed from the watermark. This information
may be combined by the processor-based system 10 with an identifier
for a particular user. Thus, the advertisement together with the
user identifier may be collected for market research purposes.
[0023] The watermark detector 60 may be utilized with content that
is recorded on a medium such as a magnetic disk as well as content
that is received with the watermark over an appropriate
distribution network, such as the Internet, or even a television
distribution network such as an airwave, cable or satellite
network.
[0024] Turning to FIG. 2, the software 90 stored on the storage 66,
in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, may
initially determine whether the time for a commercial has arrived,
as indicated in diamond 92. In one embodiment, commercials may be
inserted at predetermined times. In such case, the software 90 may
begin by determining if a commercial insertion time has arrived. In
other embodiments in which the commercials are provided
automatically, for example, before the content is actually played,
the act illustrated by the diamond 92 may be unnecessary.
[0025] Once it has been determined that there is reason to monitor
the play of a commercial, a check at diamond 94 determines whether
the detector flag has been set. The detector flag may be set by the
watermark detector 60 when the watermark detector 60 determines
that a commercial has been played appropriately. This may include
determining whether the commercial is played for the desired amount
of time and at the desired speed.
[0026] This determination that the commercial was played correctly
may be based on stored, predetermined characterizing information
for all or a variety of commercials. For example, it may be known
that all commercials have a predetermined speed and a predetermined
duration. Alternatively, the watermark detector 60 may access a
database either on the system 10 or externally thereof to determine
the characteristics of a given commercial, for example, in a given
piece of content, or at a given time. The watermark detector 60 may
then compare that information to what is actually detected through
the digital-to-analog converter 26.
[0027] In any case, if the detector 60 determines that the
advertisement has been correctly played, in one embodiment of the
present invention, it may set a flag for the software 90 to detect.
When the flag setting is detected, the software 90 reports a play
validation as indicated at block 96. In other words, the software
90 may report to external sources that the advertisement was
actually played by a given processor-based system 10 as intended.
This feedback to the advertiser may provide confirmation that in
fact the advertising program is being executed as intended. It may
also be utilized to develop statistics in some embodiments.
[0028] Next, in some embodiments, the advertisement identifier may
be added to a particular user's profile as indicated in block 98. A
user profile may be developed for everyone who uses a given
processor-based system 10. This profile may be developed by
requiring a password to begin using the system 10. As a result, a
profile may be developed indicating which commercials are viewed by
particular users.
[0029] This user profile information may be utilized to award
credits, points, or rewards to particular users based on their
commercial viewing practices. In addition, the profile may be
provided to marketing operations for targeted advertisements for
particular users.
[0030] Next, the media player 60 may be unlocked as indicated in
block 100. In one embodiment, this may mean that a key is provided
for decrypting encrypted content and allowing the play of that
content in return for having watched a commercial. As another
example, the media player 60 may be allowed to actually operate to
play the rest of the content. In still another embodiment, the
system 10 either decrypts or allows the play of content received
from an external source.
[0031] While the present invention has been described with respect
to a limited number of embodiments, those skilled in the art will
appreciate numerous modifications and variations therefrom. It is
intended that the appended claims cover all such modifications and
variations as fall within the true spirit and scope of this present
invention.
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