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. 24, 2002
Filed:
Dec. 03, 1998
Charles A. Eldering, Doylestown, PA (US);
M. Lamine Sylla, New Britain, PA (US);
Expanse Networks, Inc., Doylestown, PA (US);
Abstract
A subscriber characterization system is presented in which the subscriber's requests are transmitted to a server which fulfills those requests and performs monitoring of the subscriber requests for subsequent characterization of the subscriber. Monitoring includes maintaining records of the time duration programming is watched, the volume at which the programming is listened to, and any available information regarding the type of programming, including category and sub-category of the programming. The characterization system works across a network to extract textual information related to the programming from closed captioning data, electronic program guides, or other text sources associated with the programming. The extracted information is used to form program characteristics vectors. The programming characteristics vectors can be used in combination with the subscriber selection data to form a subscriber profile. Heuristic rules indicating the relationships between programming choices and demographics can be applied to generate additional probabilistic information regarding demographics and programming and product interests. The probabilistic information can be accessed at the server by other entities on the network.