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Television schedule information transmission and utilization system and process    
United States Patent5619274   
Link to this pagehttp://www.wikipatents.com/5619274.html
Inventor(s)Roop; John H. (Palo Alto, CA); Ebright; Alan R. (Los Gatos, CA); Kochy; Jeffrey J. (San Jose, CA); Warden; David P. (Redwood City, CA); Sokolik; Konstantine (Redwood City, CA); Alegiani; Giambattista A. (San Francisco, CA)
AbstractTelevision schedule information transmission and utilization systems (50A-50D) transmit TV schedule data and associated network control messages provided by computer (54) as packets via the Video Blanking Interval (VBI) lines in the TV signal from various television program providers (51). This data is acquired by regional data processing systems and forwarded by the regional data processing systems to subscriber units (52) and used to construct an internal database. This internal database can be accessed by the subscriber unit (52) to display a TV schedule for the channels that are received by the user's TV.
   














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Patent Text Patent PDF Print Page Summary File History
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Drawing from US Patent 5619274
Television schedule information transmission and utilization system and

     process - US Patent 5619274 Drawing
Television schedule information transmission and utilization system and process
Inventor     Roop; John H. (Palo Alto, CA); Ebright; Alan R. (Los Gatos, CA); Kochy; Jeffrey J. (San Jose, CA); Warden; David P. (Redwood City, CA); Sokolik; Konstantine (Redwood City, CA); Alegiani; Giambattista A. (San Francisco, CA)
Owner/Assignee     StarSight Telecast, Inc. (Fremont, CA)
Patent assignment
All assignments
Publication Date     April 8, 1997
Application Number     08/243,598
PAIR File History     Application Data   Transaction History
Image File Wrapper   Patent Term   Fees
Litigation
Filing Date     May 13, 1994
US Classification     348/461 348/478 725/39 725/54 725/68
Int'l Classification     H04N 007/08 H04N 007/087
Examiner     Metjahic; Safet
Assistant Examiner    
Attorney/Law Firm     Cooley Godward LLP
Address
Parent Case     ORIGIN OF THE INVENTION This application is a continuation in part of commonly assigned Young et al., U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/198,538, filed Feb. 18, 1994, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,479,268 and entitled "User Interface for Television Schedule System," which is in turn a file wrapper continuing application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/579,555, filed Sep. 10, 1990, now abandoned. This application is further a continuation in part of copending, commonly assigned Roop et al., Pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/239,225, filed May 4, 1994 and entitled "Television Schedule Information Transmission and Utilization System and Process," Attorney Docket STAR-005/00US.
Priority Data    
USPTO Field of Search     348/906 348/460 348/461 348/478 348/473 348/474 348/468 348/467 348/465 348/6 348/8 348/10 348/7 348/12 348/13 348/5 348/9 348/476 358/335 455/5.1 455/3.1 455/3.2
Patent Tags     television schedule information transmission utilization and
   
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5357276
Banker
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What is claimed is:

1. In a television schedule information transmission system including a direct broadcast satellite, a central data processing system having means for transmitting television schedule data for the direct broadcast satellite to the direct broadcast satellite, and subscriber data processing systems having means for receiving the television schedule data for the direct broadcast satellite from the direct broadcast satellite, the improvement which comprises a plurality of regional data processing systems, each located in a region of a predetermined territory, a means for transmitting television schedule data for the predetermined territory to said plurality of regional data processing systems, said plurality of regional data processing systems each including means for receiving the television schedule data for the predetermined territory, means, coupled to said means for receiving the television schedule data for the territory, for selecting the television schedule data for the region in which each of said plurality of regional data processing system is located and means, coupled to said means for selecting the television schedule data for the region, for transmitting the television schedule data for the region to a plurality of said subscriber data processing systems in each of the regions.

2. The television schedule information transmission system of claim 1 in which each of said plurality of subscriber data processing systems includes means for receiving the television schedule data for the region from the one of said plurality of regional data processing systems for the region, means, coupled to said means for receiving the television schedule data for the direct broadcast satellite and to said means for receiving the television schedule data for the region, for storing at least a portion of the television schedule data received by the subscriber data processing system from said direct broadcast satellite and the one of said plurality of regional data processing systems, means, coupled to said means for storing, for assembling portions of the stored television schedule data received by the subscriber data processing system for display to a user of the subscriber data processing system and a display coupled to said means for assembling portions of the schedule information data to display the assembled portions of the schedule information data.

3. The television schedule information transmission system of claim 1 in which said system additionally includes at least one intermediate data processing system between at least one of said plurality of regional data processing systems and a portion of the plurality of subscriber data processing systems in a region in which said at least one of said plurality of regional data processing systems is located, said intermediate data processing system including means for receiving the television schedule data for the region from said at least one of said plurality of regional data processing systems, means, coupled to said means for receiving the television schedule data for the region, for selecting television schedule data for the portion of the plurality of subscriber data processing systems in the region from the television schedule data for the region and means, coupled to said means for selecting television schedule data for the portion of the plurality of subscriber data processing systems, for transmitting the television schedule data for the portion of the plurality of subscriber data processing systems in the region, said means for transmitting being coupled to the portion of the plurality of subscriber data processing systems.

4. The television schedule information transmission system of claim 3 in which said at least one intermediate data processing system is a cable operator data processing system.

5. The television schedule information transmission system of claim 1 in which the schedule information data is transmitted in the form of commands, the commands including instructions for the plurality of subscriber data processing systems in each region and television schedule information used by the commands to assemble portions of the television schedule information to display the portions of the schedule information data.

6. The television schedule information transmission system of claim 5 in which the schedule information commands for the predetermined territory include region commands each identifying channels which are available in one of the regions in the territory and a region identification, each of said regional data processing systems having a region identification for comparing with the region identification of each region command to recognize region commands intended for that regional data processing system.

7. The television schedule information transmission system of claim 1 in which said means for transmitting schedule data for the direct broadcast satellite is configured to transmit the television schedule data for the direct broadcast satellite as commands, said means for transmitting television schedule data for the predetermined territory is config