Abstract:
A method and system for providing selective advertising on a television channel is accomplished by downloading appropriate advertisements from an advertising server to a subscriber&#39;s set top box over an out-of-band channel. The set top box monitors for download triggers to provide advertisements to the subscriber&#39;s set top box and advertising triggers to insert advertisements when an advertising opportunity occurs. The advertisements can be downloaded in advance of any advertising triggers to a local storage means associated with the set top box, if available.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates generally to advertising associated with a video stream. More particularly, the present invention is a system and method for providing advertising to a consumer without the need for multiplexing hardware to insert the advertising into a live video stream. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Providing advertising to consumers has long been the subject of much research, especially in how to best provide appropriate advertising to the relevant consumer market. For example, a manufacturer selling automobiles would not likely be well satisfied when such advertising is only provided on a children&#39;s channel. Since both the interest and market power of children for such a product would be low. Further, certain demographic markets within the country have different desires for goods and services. Therefore, even during certain prime time hours, the same advertising might yield greater or lesser success depending upon the region of the country in which the advertising is actually run. 
     Much research has shown that when advertising is customized to individual markets, and even to individual viewers, that the response to such advertising is much greater. Since advertisers continually search for the most efficient way to spend advertising dollars, a tremendous need exists to ensure that particular advertisements are served to an audience that is most likely to respond favorably to such advertisements. 
     Network television over the years has attempted to target its advertisement based upon the potential viewers for a particular program at a particular hour. However, with the advent of cable television, and the local and regional markets that are served by individual cable operators, the potential exists to provide advertisement that is much more targeted to the individuals within a particular cable system. Distribution of programming and advertisement occurs through a set top box, which is connected, directly to the viewer&#39;s television. These set top boxes have become increasingly sophisticated over the years, such that they now contain both processing capability and memory for storage of instructions and other content. 
     What would therefore be truly useful is a system and method that uses the capabilities of the set top box to receive and manage, together with the cable operator&#39;s server operations, advertisements that are presented to individual viewers or groups of users. Thus, a more targeted advertising campaign can be offered to merchants desiring to reach a more appropriate audience with their advertisements and advertising budgets. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide targeted advertising to consumers via a cable network system. 
     It is a further objective of the present invention to provide advertising over a cable network system that is targeted to specific groups or individuals who are subscribers to the cable system. 
     It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide advertisements without the need for broadcasting of such advertisements over an entire cable network system. 
     It is yet another objective of the present invention to serve advertisements to viewers associated with a live video stream. 
     It is a further objective of the present invention to provide targeted advertisements to viewers associated with a live video stream without the need for a large complex multiplexing system. 
     It is yet another objective of the present invention to utilize the set top box for a particular viewer to store advertisements to be displayed to the viewer. 
     It is a further objective of the present invention to use the set top box for providing signaling to an advertising server to provide advertising to a viewer at a particular time. 
     It is a further objective of the present invention to employ the set top box to store advertisements that are appropriate to the channel being viewed by a viewer. 
     It is yet another objective of the present invention to utilize the set top box for serving advertisements to viewers when browser applications are being employed. 
     These and other objectives of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art by a review of the specification that follows. 
     The present invention is a system and method for serving advertisements to individual viewers or groups of viewers on a cable network system. The present invention allows a cable network operator to select specific advertisements that would be displayed on a viewer&#39;s TV screen, depending upon who the specific set top box is assigned to, and upon the channel that is being viewed by the viewer at a particular time. 
     The system basically comprises a set top box, a cable operator headend, and an advertising server/carousel. The advertising server holds formatted advertisements with appropriate indicator information assigning the ads to specific channels of content. The advertising server delivers advertisements to the set top box when the set top box is first turned on during a particular viewing session by the viewer and periodically thereafter. 
     The set top box comprises signaling and storage means such that signals can be provided to the cable operator headend, and so that advertisements that are downloaded from the advertising server can be stored in the set top box for subsequent display to the user, or stored in other home server type of storage networked to the set top box. 
     Individual subscriber information is stored at the cable operator headend and advertising server such that certain demographic, or common channel preference pattern information concerning the individual viewer may be stored and correlated with the advertisements to be served to that particular viewer. 
     Advertisements that are stored in the advertising server have associated channel information stored along with the advertisement. In this fashion, advertisements that are appropriate to children&#39;s channel are so flagged. Similarly, advertisements that relate to the content of other channels are also flagged so that advertisements appropriate to the channel being viewed are downloaded to the set top box. 
     When the set top box is first turned on and periodically there after, advertisements are downloaded to the set top box. When a viewer views a particular channel, advertisements that are identified with that specific channel are chosen from those stored on the set top box and subsequently displayed to the viewer. 
     In the event that the set top box has limited memory, and therefore is not capable of holding a large number of advertisements for any particular channel, the set top box can signal the cable operator headend each time that a channel is changed. Thereafter, the advertising server and cable operator headend will serve advertisements to the viewer, depending upon the channel that is being viewed. Alternatively only advertising associated with a set of channels that the viewer commonly spends time viewing can downloaded with high probability of being the set of advertisements needed on the set top box. 
     Data for the advertisement is passed to the set top box via the out-of-band channel via Quadrature Phase Shift Key (QPSK) or on one of the inband channels via Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). These modulations are a preferred embodiment, but do not limit the invention to use of other out-of-band or in-band modulations such as DOCSIS. 
     The end result of this process is a more selective control for presenting advertising to viewers which is targeted not only to the local cable operator market but is also capable of being served based upon individual viewer&#39;s demographic information. This system is capable of being used not only with normal television programming but can also be used with Internet browser and browser-like applications. In addition, the cable operator can introduce advertising to individual viewers without having to insert the advertising into a broadcast feed, along with the video content that is to be displayed to the viewer. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES 
         FIG. 1  illustrates the overall architecture of the present invention. 
         FIG. 2  illustrates the overall flow for exchange of data and advertisements for one embodiment of the present invention. 
         FIG. 3  illustrates a typical arrangement for a set top box used in the present invention. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention comprises a system and method for presenting advertisements to individual viewers on a cable network system without the need for multiplexing equipment. To provide customization of advertising for each individual user in the cable head end would require a large set of complex multiplexing equipment, and potentially be a very inefficient use of bandwidth resources while using the set top in this manner creates a more scalable solution for targeted selective advertising. 
     Referring first to  FIG. 1 , the overall architecture of the present invention is illustrated. The system of the present invention comprises an advertising server  10 , holding a variety of advertisements that are to be displayed to viewers of a cable network system. Advertisements on the advertising server  10  have channel association associated with each advertisement. This channel information provides a tag that identifies a specific advertisement as being appropriate for display on a particular channel when that channel is being viewed by an individual viewer/subscriber. 
     The advertising server  10  is connected to the system router or switch  12  which in turn is connected to and controlled by a digital network controller  14 . Video signals for programming and content are sent via a video processing unit  16 , which provides some of the multiple broadcast bands of a variety of video channels. This video processing unit  16  is a standard available piece of networking equipment such as the Broadband Integrated Gateway from Scientific Atlanta, whose characteristics are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety. 
     The video content is sent via a QAM in channel modulator bank  18  to a combiner  20 , which in turn combines and sends the video signals to filter  28  for subsequent distribution to an individual viewer&#39;s set top box  30 . 
     Individual advertisements can reach the set top box for subsequent storage via several paths. When set top box  30  is first turned on during a particular viewing session, a signal is sent via filter  28  via out-of-band signal to splitter  26 . The signal is demodulated via out of band QPSK demodulator bank  24 . The signal from the set top box  30  is then provided to router  12 , which in turn provides the information that set top box  30  is now online to advertising server  10 . These modulations are a preferred embodiment, but do not limit the invention to use of other out-of-band or in-band modulations such as DOCSIS or any particular frequency spectrum relationship between the in-band and out-of-band channels. 
     In the event that set top box  30  or other network accessible local storage does not have sufficient capacity to store a number of advertisements, the system of the present invention can also operate upon a signal that is presented by set top box  30  in real time to the cable operator headend. 
     In the case where set top box  30  does not have sufficient memory for storage of multiple advertisements, whenever a particular channel is being viewed by a user/subscriber, set top box  30  provides an appropriate signal via filter  28 , to splitter  26  over QPSK demodulator bank  24  through router  12  to advertising server  10  which then serves the appropriate advertisement in real time or via carousel to the viewer via the video processing unit  16  through inband QAM modulator bank  18  through combiner  20 , filter  28  to set top box  30  for display on the user&#39;s screen. 
     Alternatively, advertisements can be displayed via out-of-band channel and via QPSK modulator bank  22  through combiner  20 , filter  28 , and to the set top box  30  for subsequent display. Thus, advertisements may be sent to set top box via either the out-of-band channel via QPSK modulator or on one of the inband channels via QAM modulators. 
     Alternatively, subsets of the total advertisements may be delivered in real time or for storage via the same channels depending on algorithms associated with historical viewing habits or other subscriber information. 
     Referring to  FIG. 2 , the overall flow for exchange of data and advertisements of the present invention is illustrated. Set top box is first turned on  50  and provides a signal  52  over the cable network to the cable operator headend that the set top box is online and ready to receive advertisements. 
     Advertisements that are retrieved by the advertising server are uploaded over the cable TV system  58  and transmitted to the set top box  60  of the particular viewer. As noted earlier, advertisements are tagged with an appropriate channel and other tags that might be useful for the display of the advertisement. For example, a time slot during the day is also an appropriate tag for an advertisement since programming changes during the course of the day to accommodate different viewer groups who might be viewing a particular channel during a 24-hour period. 
     Set top box receives and stores the tagged advertisement  62  for subsequent display during the course of the viewing day. Thereafter, set top box monitors the transmission of video content  64  as well as displays the content in the usual fashion. 
     When set top box senses a signal from the cable operator headend that an advertising trigger is present  66 , the set top box senses the fact that an advertising opportunity is beginning, senses the channel which the viewer is currently watching  68 , and retrieves from local storage or carousel and displays an advertisement that is tagged to the channel that the user is currently watching  70 . The advertisement is thus displayed appropriate to the channel that is being viewed by the viewer. 
       FIG. 3  illustrates a typical arrangement for a set top box used in the present invention. The set top box  80  comprises a 6-mega hertz tuner  82 . Signal is presented to an NTSC decoder  84  which provides video and audio to a graphics processor  86 . Video and audio is then output  88  for subsequent display on the television. Additionally, signal from the tuner  82  is presented to QAM demodulator  90 . The signal is then decrypted  92  and the resultant digital stream is presented to MPEG demultiplexer/decoder  94  which provides a video and audio stream to the graphics processor  86  for subsequent video output  88 . In band graphics and sound are also sent from MPEG demultiplexer/decoder  94  through CPU  96  to provide graphics and sounds to the graphics processor  86  for subsequent video and audio output  88 . QPSK modulator/demodulator  98  allows out of band communication via the set top box. Local storage  100  or an optional home server  102  provide the means to store the advertisements and/or instructions. 
     Set top boxes having the potential for the interactions noted in the present invention are currently available. For example, scientific-Atlanta explorer 2000 set top box currently has the processing power to support the present invention. 
     A system and method for the display of targeted advertisement over a cable network has been illustrated. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that other variations of the present invention are possible without departing from the scope of the invention as disclosed. Such variations could include different methods of tagging and identifying advertisements to be displayed, when the advertisement is ready to be displayed, and the channels over which advertisements are to be displayed. For example, a particular advertisement may be displayed over multiple channels but not all channels of a cable system. Thus tags for advertisements can comprise tags associated with more than one video channel. 
     Another modification could include storing profiles on multiple viewers at a subscriber location and requiring login to identify the viewer. Additionally, with the continued convergence of television and computers, although the invention has been described above with reference to a set-top-box, for purposes of this disclosure, the term “set-top-box” is defined to include other devices including the required elements of the disclosed set-top-box, whether separate from a television or not, including, but not limited to, TV tuner-equipped computers and digital televisions that have the necessary CPU and storage means. Likewise, although the invention has been described with respect to a cable television system/network, these terms are herein defined to include any network for delivery of streaming audio/video services to subscribers, whether wired or wireless. The present invention is therefore limited only by the scope of the claims appended hereto.