Internet television system and method with user selectable genres and schedule

(54) INTERNET TELEVISION SYSTEM AND METHOD WITH USER SELECTABLE GENRES AND SCHEDULE

(75) Inventor: Emre Oral, London (GB)

(73) Assignee: Onder Uzel, Istanbul (TR)

( * ) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U.S.C. 154(b) by 0 days.

(21) Appl. No.: 09/569,143

(22) Filed:

(51) (52)

(58)

(56)

May 11, 2000

Int. CI.7 G06F 3/00; H04N 7/173

U.S. CI 345/769; 345/733; 345/744;

345/810; 345/835; 725/44; 725/45

Field of Search 345/716, 717,

345/733, 744, 745-747, 762-765, 769, 810, 811, 813, 825, 835, 840, 846, 902, 963; 348/552, 906; 725/32, 34, 37, 39, 44^7, 52, 86, 87, 91, 109-113

References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

5,945,988 A * 8/1999 Williams et al 345/747

5,973,683 A 10/1999 Cragun et al.

6,025,837 A * 2/2000 Matthews et al 345/721

6,029,045 A * 2/2000 Picco et al 725/34

6,091,411 A * 7/2000 Straub et al 345/747

6,388,714 Bl * 5/2002 Schein et al 348/563

6,411,307 Bl * 6/2002 Rosin et al 345/716

6,434,621 Bl * 8/2002 Pezzillo et al 709/231

6,587,127 Bl * 7/2003 Leeke et al 345/765

FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS

JP 410228687 A * 8/1998 G11B/15/02

JP 410256875 A * 9/1998 H03J/5/02

WO WO 00/40028 * 7/2000 H04N/7/173

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Janet GRECO, "Data Preparation of Interactive Electronic
Program Guides," Sep. 12-16, 1996, pp. 294-297.*
"Sharp Announces Partnership With Replay Networks for
Branded Personal Digital Video Recorders," Jan. 6, 2000,
Busine Wire, pl458.*

* cited by examiner

Primary Examiner—John Cabeca
Assistant Examiner—-X. L. Bautista
(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Jack Ho

(57) ABSTRACT

An Internet television system and method are comprised of defining different program types or genres, and categorizing television programs into different genres. Each program is associated with a description which includes the assigned genre. The programs are encoded for streaming over the Internet. A Web site is provided for users to access the programs. A scheduler on a Web page is comprised of a plurality of timeslots arranged into a grid. Program genre icons corresponding to the genres are arranged adjacent the grid. A user can build a schedule by dragging the genre icons into selected timeslots, and save the schedule to a database. Programs which have not been watched, or least watched and long ago by the user are automatically selected for the scheduled genres and streamed to the client computer. The programs are allocated to the time available for each genre. Ads are interspersed between the programs.

31 Claims, 4 Drawing Sheets