EP0682452B1
Expired / Lapsed
EP
⏱️ 0.0 years remaining
Method and system for providing efficient selection of television programs
Assignee: Microsoft Corp
•
Filing: 1995-05-10
•
Granted: 2001-01-03
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Expires: 2015-05-10
Abstract
No abstract record available.
Inventors
- 👤 Adam Christopher Rauch
- 👤 Gregory Riker
- 👤 Nathan Paul Myhrvold
- 👤 Edwin Thorne Iii
Bibliographic Details
Application Number
—
Jurisdiction
EP
Data Source
google_patents
Last Synchronized
2026-10-24 11:17
CPC Classifications
H; H04; H04N; H04N21/00; H04N21/40; H04N21/47; H04N21/472; H04N21/47214; H04N5/00; H04N5/44; H04N5/50; G; G11; G11B; G11B27/00; G11B27/02; G11B27/022; G11B27/028; G11B33/00; G11B33/10; H04N21/41; H04N21/4104; H04N21/4135; H04N21/414; H04N21/4143; H04N21/426; H04N21/42692; H04N21/43; H04N21/431; H04N21/4312; H04N21/433; H04N21/4334; H04N21/442; H04N21/44213; H04N21/44222; H04N21/45; H04N21/4508; H04N21/4532; H04N21/466; H04N21/4667; H04N21/482; H04N21/4821; H04N21/80; H04N21/81; H04N21/8146; H04N21/83; H04N21/84; H04N5/76; H04N5/78; H04N5/782; H04N5/765; H04N5/775; Y; Y10; Y10S; Y10S348/00; Y10S348/903
Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 23
Claim 1
Independent Claim
137 words
A method, performed by a computer (100), of obtaining from a user a selected
program from among a plurality of television programs, the method comprising
the steps of: (a) receiving, for each of the television programs, a program name, a time of
broadcast, and a description of the television program; (b) for each of the television programs, displaying on a display device (130)
the program name and the time of broadcast in a schedule layout (200)
which visually associates the program name with the time of broadcast; (c) obtaining from the user a designation of the selected program; and (d) displaying on the display device (130) the description of the selected
program for concurrent display with the schedule layout (200) in a
separate location (230) so that the description does not overlay the
displayed schedule layout (200).
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
64 words
The method of claim 1 wherein: step (a) further comprises receiving a channel indicator associated with
the program name and the time of broadcast for each of the television
programs; and step (b) further comprises displaying the channel indicator on the display
device (130) in the schedule layout (200) so as to be visually associated
with the program name and the time of broadcast.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
58 words
The method of claim 2 wherein the schedule layout (200) comprises a grid
(210) containing the program name of each of the television programs and
having a channel axis which references the channel indicator associated with
each of the television programs and a time axis which references the time of
broadcast of each associated with the television programs.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
70 words
The method of claim 3, further comprising the steps of: for each channel indicator, determining the number of times that an
attribute associated with the channel indicator has been designated by
the user; and arranging the channel indicators on the channel axis in order from the
channel indicator with the attribute designated the most number of times
to the channel indicator with the attribute designated the least number of
times.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
74 words
The method of claim 3, further comprising the steps of: for each channel indicator, determining the number of times that program
names associated with the channel indicator have been designated by the
user; and arranging the channel indicators on the channel axis in order from the
channel indicator with the highest frequency of program names
designated by the user to the channel indicator with the lowest frequency
of program names designated by the user.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
73 words
The method of claim 3, further comprising the steps of: for each channel indicator, determining the number of times that a
program name displayed on the time axis has been designated by the
user; and arranging the channel indicators on the channel axis in order from the
channel indicator with the program name designated the highest number
of times to the channel indicator with the program name designated the
lowest number of times.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
68 words
The method of claim 1 wherein: step (a) further comprises receiving a set of topics, each topic having one
or more programs classified according to the topic; and step (c) further comprises obtaining a topic selected by the user,
displaying a list of the television programs classified according to the
selected topic, and obtaining from the user a designated program from the
program list as the selected program.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
54 words
The method of claim 7 wherein step (c) further comprises displaying a list of
topics and obtaining from the user a designated topic from the topic list as the
selected topic, the list of topics being displayed in an order corresponding to
the number of times each of the topics has been previously selected.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
33 words
The method of claim 7 wherein step (c) further comprises displaying the list of
television programs classified according to the topic in an order based on
program use criteria related to the topic.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
38 words
The method of claim 7 wherein step (c) further comprises displaying the list of
television programs classified according to the topic in an order based on the
frequency of selection of television programs displayed on a same channel.
Claim 11
Independent Claim
44 words
The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 10, further comprising the steps of: (e) obtaining from the user a request to view the selected program; and (f) displaying the requested program on a full screen of the display device
(130).
Claim 12
Dependent Claim
35 words
The method of claim 11, further comprising the step of: (g) displaying program information superimposed on the display of the
requested program when a channel is changed by the user to display the
requested program.
Claim 13
Dependent Claim
17 words
The method of claim 12 wherein the program information includes a textual
description of the requested program.
Claim 14
Dependent Claim
17 words
The method of claim 12 wherein the program information includes the program
name of the requested program.
Claim 15
Independent Claim
61 words
The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 10, further comprising the steps of: (e) obtaining from the user a request to record the selected program; and (f) providing an instruction to a recording device (140) to record the selected
program at the corresponding time of broadcast stored for the selected
program in response to obtaining the request.
Claim 16
Dependent Claim
47 words
The method of claim 15, further comprising the step of: (g) providing an instruction to the recording device (140) to record the textual
description of the selected program for a predetermined time just prior to
performing step (f) of providing the instruction to record the selected
program.
Claim 17
Independent Claim
42 words
The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 16, wherein step (d) further
comprises displaying on the display device (130) a broadcast of the selected
program in a picture-in-graphics display window for concurrent display with the
schedule layout (200).
Claim 18
Independent Claim
45 words
The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 16, wherein: step (a) further comprises receiving a bitmap describing the selected
program; and step (d) further comprises displaying the bitmap on the display device
(130) for concurrent display with the schedule layout (200).
Claim 19
Independent Claim
64 words
The method as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 16, wherein: step (a) further comprises receiving a graphic description of the television
program; and step (d) further comprises displaying the graphic description of the
selected program for concurrent display with the schedule layout (200) in
a separate location (240) so that the graphic description does not overlay
the displayed schedule layout (200).
Claim 20
Dependent Claim
167 words
A computer system for selecting and displaying a television program from
among a plurality of television programs, comprising: a display device (130); an input device (120) through which the selected television program is
selected by a user; and a computer (100) coupled to the display device (130) and to the input
device (120), comprising: an input unit (160) for obtaining the selected television program from
the input device (120), a memory (300) for storing a program name, a time of broadcast and
a description of each of the plurality of television programs, and a processor (170) for obtaining the selected television program from
the input unit (160), for reading the program name and time of
broadcast for each of the plurality of television programs from the
memory (300), for displaying on the display device (130) the read
program names and times of broadcast, and for displaying the
description of the selected program concurrently with the program name and time of
broadcast of the plurality of television programs.
Claim 21
Dependent Claim
172 words
A computer system for selecting and displaying a television program from
among a plurality of television programs, comprising: a display device (130); an input device (120) through which the selected television program is
selected by a user; and a computer (100) coupled to the display device (130) and to the input
device (120), comprising: an input unit (160) for obtaining the selected television program from
the input device (120), a memory (300) for storing a program name and a time of broadcast
of each of the plurality of television programs, and a processor (170) for obtaining the selected television program from
the input unit (160), for reading the program name and time of
broadcast for each of the plurality of television programs from the
memory (300), for displaying on the display device (130) the read
program names and times of broadcast, and, when the selected
television program is currently being broadcast, for displaying the
selected television program concurrently with the program name and
time of broadcast of the plurality of television programs.
Claim 22
Dependent Claim
65 words
The computer system of claim 20 or 21, further comprising: a recording device (140) coupled to the computer (100) and coupled to
the display device (130); wherein the processor (170) controls the recording device (140) to record the
selected television program upon obtaining from the input unit (160) a
request provided by the user via the input device (120) to record the
selected television program.
Claim 23
Independent Claim
137 words
A method in a computer system for displaying television information about a
plurality of television programs on a display device (130), the method
comprising the steps of: receiving the television information for each of a plurality of television
programs, the television information include a name and a time of
broadcast; for each of the plurality of television programs, displaying on a display
device (130) the name of the television program and an indication of the
time of broadcast of the television program; receiving from a user of the computer system a selection of a television
program; and in response to receiving the selection and when the selected television
program is currently being broadcast, displaying the broadcast of the
selected television program simultaneously with the displayed names and
indications of the time of broadcast of the television programs.
References Cited (Backward Citations)
No citation records indexed.
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