Patent Document ID: 5576755
Application ID: 08330684

Base Claim:
1. A data verification system for automatically verifying the integrity of a database of program schedule information for an electronic television program guide comprising: storage means for storing a database of television program schedule listings, said database comprising a plurality of data fields for a plurality of television stations; means for selecting a station from said plurality of stations for verification of one or more of said data fields for said selected station; means for selecting a time range for said verification of said one or more data fields; data processing means for automatically analyzing said data fields for said selected station in said database for at least one of schedule gaps and schedule overlaps in the schedule data for said station, and editing means for editing said data fields for said selected station in said database.

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Claim 9:
9. The system of claim 1 wherein said data fields for said selected station in said database comprise schedule times and run times for a plurality of television programs and said data processing means determines if either of the following inequalities is substantially met: EQU T.sub.n+1 &gt;T.sub.n +RT.sub.n EQU T.sub.n+1 &lt;T.sub.n +RT.sub.n where T.sub.n denotes the schedule time and RT.sub.n the run time for the nth listing in the database for said selected station, and T.sub.n+1 denotes the schedule time for the n+1th listing in the database for said selected station.