Electronic redeemable coupon system via television

An electronic redeemable coupon generating system comprising:

• encoding means for encoding coupon-related data as part of the information contained in a standard television signal transmission, said transmission including picture information, associated with said coupon-related data, for display on a television monitor screen;
• decoding means for receiving said standard television signal transmission and for extracting said coupon-related data from said standard television signal transmission during display of said associated picture information;
• means for selecting portions of the extracted coupon-related data and generating representations of such selected portions;
• and
• recording means for recording said representations of said extracted coupon-related data portions on a recording medium for subsequent readout and coupon redemption.

An apparatus for decoding and storing messages encoded in the signal of a television picture transmission, said television picture transmission containing video, audio, and message components, said message component being transmitted periodically, the video component of said television picture transmission being displayed as a picture on a video screen and including a visible logo in the picture area only when a message component is being transmitted, said apparatus comprising:

• decoding means for receiving said message component, and for decoding said encoded messages contained therein to produce a message signal containing said messages;
• a video mixer receiving said video component of said television picture transmission signal;
• means coupled to the output of said decoding means for passing selected ones of said message signals to said video mixer for mixing said message signal with said video component so as to superimpose said selected message on said video component as viewed on the video screen;
• storage means capable of storing at least a part of each message selected;
• means for manually selecting ones of said displayed messages for storage in said storage means;
• and
• means for storing said selected message in said storage means.

A decoding unit for receiving a standard television signal containing picture information for display on a television monitor screen, and further containing coupon-related data encoded as part of the information contained in said standard television signal, said decoding unit comprising:

• means for extracting said coupon-related data from said standard television signal;
• recording means for recording representations of selected portions of extracted coupon-related data on a recording medium for subsequent readout and coupon redemption;
• and
• means for displaying predefined indicia on the television monitor screen responsive to coupon-related data being encoded in said television signal transmission.