Patent ID: 7340760

Claim:
A method for displaying advertisements transmitted to a user unit, the method comprising: receiving, at the user unit, at least one advertisement tagged with a delay tag indicating the following: whether display of the at least one advertisement can be delayed; whether a user of the user unit can control display of said at least one advertisement; and a non-advertising programming (NAP) threshold defining a maximum amount of NAP that may be displayed to the user of the user unit before the at least one advertisement must be displayed to the user of the user unit; determining, at a first time, at the user unit, a first amount of NAP that has already been displayed to the user of the user unit; displaying said at least one advertisement without delay if at least one of the following is true: said delay tag does not allow delaying display of said at least one advertisement; and said first amount of NAP is greater than or equal to said NAP threshold; and determining whether said delay tag allows delaying display of said at least one advertisement, and if so performing the following: a) storing said at least one advertisement at the user unit; and b) determining, at a second time, later than said first time, at the user unit, a second amount of NAP that has already been displayed to the user of the user unit, and retrieving and displaying said at least one advertisement if said second amount of NAP that has already been displayed to the user of the user unit is greater than or equal to the NAP threshold.