Patent ID: 6668378
Filing Date: 2003-12-23
Classification: H04N

Abstract:
In an interactive television system comprised of a broadcast station for transmitting video content to either or both of i) one or more relay stations that in turn retransmit the video content for broadcasting, and ii) a plurality of individual receiver units each comprising a local computing system associated with a display for viewing both video and Internet content in an interactive manner, a method for presenting to the receiver units access to Internet content to enable interactive viewing of Internet content with received video content, but doing so in a manner that takes into account differences between different types of receiver units, namely, those capable of connecting to the Internet and those that are not, the method comprising:receiving video content that includes a trigger which identifies certain Internet content; said trigger being characterized by at least one attribute that identifies the trigger as either a connected or a disconnected content trigger that permits the different types of receiver units to process the trigger differently, so that receiving units that are connected to the Internet can process the trigger and then connect and download the identified Internet content, and those receivers that have no Internet connection, will selectively forego processing the trigger depending on whether the trigger is connected or a disconnected content trigger; and processing the received trigger to determine whether it is a connected or a disconnected trigger based on the particular attribute for the trigger that is present.