Patent ID: 8655826

Claim:
A method of operating a processing system that includes one or more processors and a storage subsystem, the method comprising: one or more of the set of processes consisting of: a first process of ascertaining whether a candidate item of content at a particular recipient site is matched to one or more of a set of reference assets of content, the first process comprising: accepting a candidate item of content or recognition information thereof; comparing the accepted candidate item of content or the recognition information thereof with a set of reference assets of content using a set of rules, the rules stored in the storage subsystem in computer-interpretable form, the rules including for each reference asset of content one or more content match criteria for matching the candidate item of content with said each reference asset of content, the rules further including action rules for defining one or more actions to take in the case that there is a match with a reference asset of content according to a match criterion for the reference asset, wherein the content match criteria for at least one reference asset of content include a plurality of content match criteria for matching, such that different actions are defined in the action rules for different ones of the plurality of match criteria, and wherein at least one match criterion in the rules is such that the matching includes ascertaining a degree of recognition; and in the case that there is a match according to a particular content match criterion, using a stored rule for the particular content match criterion to ascertain what action or actions to take for the match, and a second process comprising accepting one or more rules for one or more reference assets, the one or more rules including for each reference asset of content one or more content match criteria for matching a candidate item of content with said each reference asset of content at a particular recipient site, the rules further including action rules for defining one or more actions to take in the case that there is a match with a reference asset of content according to a match criterion for the reference asset, wherein the content match criteria for at least one reference asset of content include a plurality of content match criteria for matching, such that different actions are defined in the action rules for different ones of the plurality of match criteria, and wherein at least one match criterion in the rules is such that the matching includes ascertaining a degree of recognition, the second process further comprising storing the one or more rules in the storage subsystem in computer-interpretable form, wherein for a reference item of content that includes audio and video components, separate rules can be provided for matching just the audio component and for matching just the video component.