Patent ID: 7120926

Claim:
A method of advising a subscriber to a bidirectional cable television network of executable programming for a set-top terminal that may be purchased over the bidirectional cable television network to upgrade or enhance features provided by that subscriber's set-top terminal and for providing such executable programming selected by said subscriber to that subscriber's set-top terminal, the method comprising: transmitting a message to said set-top terminal over a bidirectional cable line that provides a directory of programming available for purchase via an upstream communication on said bidirectional cable line and download over said bidirectional cable line associated with said cable television network, said directory listing available programming objects that are configured to be installed and executed by a set-top terminal to enhance functionality of that set-top terminal, said message further including a fee charged for downloading each listed programming object, wherein the message is transmitted in a sub-message with an out of band network message and the message identifies a location of the programming objects and entitlement control data structures corresponding to the programming objects, and wherein the entitlement control data structures are transmitted separately from the programming objects, whereby the set top terminal utilizes the entitlement control data structures to verify that an appropriate code object has been received without alteration.