Patent ID: 8595781

Claim:
A method, performed by a centrally located computer system, for automatically providing contextually targeted content to a remotely located television system comprising a video screen, while a video segment is being displayed on the video screen, said method comprising the following steps: (a) storing in a database a respective reference cue data set for each of a multiplicity of reference video segments, each data set comprising: (i) a respective sample set of reference data points derived from television signals for respective portions of a respective reference video segment having respective offset times relative to a starting point of said respective reference video segment; and (ii) a respective set of associated location data, each set of associated location data comprising segment identity data identifying said respective reference video segment and offset time data comprising a respective offset time of a respective portion relative to a starting point of said respective reference video segment; (b) receiving cue points and respective time stamps from the television system during display of a video segment on the video screen, each cue point comprising a respective sample set of data points derived from television signals for a respective portion of said video segment being displayed on the video screen; (c) for each received cue point, searching the database for sample sets of reference data points which are a sufficiently close match to the received cue point using a path pursuit algorithm; (d) storing suspect location data in a history data structure, said suspect location data comprising segment identity data and time offset data associated with the sufficiently close sample sets of reference data points found in step (c), and said data history structure comprising respective bins associated with respective reference video segments corresponding to said suspect location data; (e) calculating a respective certainty probability for each of said suspect locations, each certainty probability representing a degree of certainty that a respective portion of a reference video segment corresponding to a respective suspect location is the same as location of the portion of said video segment that was displayed on the video screen; (f) summing storing said certainty probabilities in said bins; (g) determining whether the sum of said certainty probabilities in any bin exceeds a preset probability threshold; (h) in response to a determination in step (g) that the sum of said certainty probabilities in any bin exceeds said preset probability threshold, retrieving from said database content associated with the portion of the reference video segment corresponding to said suspect location having said certainty probability in excess of said preset probability threshold; and (i) sending said retrieved content to the television system while said video segment is still being displayed on the video screen.