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:
Apr. 20, 2004
Filed:
Apr. 30, 1998
Brian P. Dougherty, Lafayette, CA (US);
Allan C. Thygesen, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Michael Capuano, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Wink Communications, Inc., Alameda, CA (US);
Abstract
A system and method provide a generalized reminder system in an interactive broadcast environment, that enables a viewer to quickly establish reminders for both broadcast events and non-broadcast events, and have such reminders displayed at an appropriate future time. The system includes a broadcast that broadcasts programs, such as television programs and commercial advertisements, and interactive applications associated with various such programs. The interactive applications include reminder interactive applications which have reminder data which describe a future time for displaying a reminder and a description of the event for which the reminder is desired. The broadcast programs and reminder interactive applications are received in broadcast receiver which displays the programs. A viewer viewing a program signals the broadcast receiver to establish a reminder for an event related to the program. The broadcast receiver stores the reminder data from the reminder interactive application, and initiates a timer that expires at the desired future time. When the timer expires, the broadcast receiver displays the event description for the reminder. Reminders may be established and displayed for both broadcast events and non-broadcasts events, as the description of the event is contained in the reminder data.