The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 28, 2021
Filed:
Jul. 31, 2013
Time Warner Cable Enterprises Llc, St. Louis, MO (US);
Eric D. Hybertson, Longmont, CO (US);
Dean Osborne, Thornton, CO (US);
Charles Hasek, Broomfield, CO (US);
Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC, St. Louis, MO (US);
Abstract
Methods and apparatus that facilitate watching of programming content on a secondary channel during a program segment, e.g., commercial break or program portion which is not of interest to a user, on a primary channel are described. In various embodiments when a user switches to a secondary channel during a program segment, the switch is detected and the program on the primary channel continues to be received and buffered while the content from the secondary channel is output to the display. The program segment on the primary channel may be a commercial break including one or more commercials or a portion of a program identified as a segment in information communicated with the program or via out of band signaling. The end of the segment on the primary channel is detected and the user is notified or automatically switched back to the primary channel at the end of the segment.