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:
Jun. 06, 2023
Filed:
Sep. 21, 2021
Comcast Cable Communications, Llc, Philadelphia, PA (US);
Michael A. Chen, Wallingford, PA (US);
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, Philadelphia, PA (US);
Abstract
A television program ratings method and system includes transferring information associated with households from a cable provider to a ratings provider such that the ratings provider has access to information associated with sampled households and lacks access to information associated with non-sampled households. To this end, identity information and usage information associated with the households are respectively anonymized and encrypted. Knowledge of the identities of the sampled households enables the anonymized identity information and the encrypted usage information for the sampled households to be respectively de-anonymized and decrypted. The ratings provider knows which households are sampled households. As such, the ratings provider de-anonymizes and decrypts the information associated with the sampled households and then uses the de-anonymized and decrypted information to determine television program ratings. The cable provider anonymizes and encrypts the information for all households as the cable provider does not know which households are sampled households.