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:
May. 24, 1977
Filed:
Nov. 28, 1975
Donald E Haselwood, Clearwater, FL (US);
Carl M Solar, Largo, FL (US);
A.C. Nielsen Company, Northbrook, IL (US);
Abstract
A system for automatically monitoring the programs broadcast by network affiliated broadcasting stations includes a plurality of remote monitoring sites and a central office for periodically interrogating the remote monitoring sites. Each remote monitoring site contains apparatus for monitoring time varying program identifying data, and for storing the data in a change format when the time varying data changes in an unexpected manner. An elapsed time clock in each remote monitoring unit generates a record of the elapsed time between the unexpected changes. Each remote unit includes a minicomputer having a read-only memory and a random-access memory. The data in the read-only memory serves to establish communications with the central office and permits the central office to access the random-access memory. After the random-access memory has been accessed, it may be reprogrammed to alter the operation of the remote monitoring unit to accommodate different data formats or different information.