Television advertising automated billing system

A method of automated billing of advertising, comprising:

• marking an advertisement with a code, said code indicating some aspect of the advertisement associated with billing;
• transmitting said advertisement over a channel;
• sensing said code on the advertisement;
• verifying security of said code;
• and
• obtaining billing information from the sensed code, wherein
• said code is text, and said marking comprises adding said code to closed captioning.

A method of automated billing of advertising, comprising:

• forming an advertisement, including marking the advertisement with a code at a time of forming, said code indicating some aspect of the advertisement associated with billing;
• transmitting said advertisement over a channel;
• sensing said code on the advertisement;
• verifying security of said code;
• obtaining billing information from the sensed code;
• and
• wherein said marking comprises placing said code in a closed captioning portion.

A method of automated billing of advertising, comprising:

• forming an advertisement, including marking the advertisement with a code, said code indicating some aspect of the advertisement associated with billing;
• transmitting said advertisement over a channel;
• sensing said code on the advertisement;
• verifying security of said code;
• obtaining billing information from the sensed code;
• and
• taking an action which prevents the advertisement from being automatically detected as an advertisement.

An automated advertisement billing system, comprising:

• an advertisement production area, including a coder, which provides a code on an advertisement, said code not being seen as part of a picture forming program content, said code including information about the advertisement;
• and
• a television station, physically separate from said advertisement production area, and including a code detection system, receiving said advertisement including said code, and determining a time when said advertisement is transmitted and providing an indication of the advertisement and the time;
• a comparing device, comparing said indication with prestored information indicating a desired indication and time, and producing an authorization signal if said indication and time match said indication and time in said prestored information;
• and
• first means for preventing use of said code to identify whether the part of the picture being played includes commercial or non-commercial content.

An automated advertisement billing system, comprising:

• an advertisement production area, including a coder, which provides a code on an advertisement, said code not being seen as part of a picture forming program content, said code including information about the advertisement;
• and
• a television station, physically separate from said advertisement production area, and including a code detection system, receiving said advertisement including said code, and determining a time when said advertisement is transmitted and providing an indication of the advertisement and the time;
• a comparing device, comparing said indication with prestored information indicating a desired indication and time, and producing an authorization signal if said indication and time match said indication and time in said prestored information;
• and second means for maintaining security of said code;
• wherein said second means comprises third means for adding a correction indication to the code which relates to some content of the advertisement.

An automated advertisement billing system, comprising;

• an advertisement production area, including a coder, which provides a code on an advertisement, said code not being seen as part of a picture forming program content, said code including information about the advertisement;
• and
• a television station, physically separate from said advertisement production area, and including a code detection system, receiving said advertisement including said code, and determining a time when said advertisement is transmitted and providing an indication of the advertisement and the time;
• a comparing device, comparing said indication with prestored information indicating a desired indication and time, and producing an authorization signal if said indication and time match said indication and time in said prestored information;
• second means for maintaining security of said code;
• wherein said second means comprises third means for adding a correction indication to the code which relates to some content of the advertisement;
• and
• wherein said third means includes a closed captioning device and said correlation indication comprises a relationship between said code and content of closed captioning.

A method of automatically billing for a commodity which is produced during a time slot and is time slot sensitive, comprising:

• producing said commodity to be shown during said time slot;
• producing a first code which is associated with said commodity, said code indicating identity of said commodity;
• determining some aspect of content of said commodity, and producing a second code indicative of said aspect;
• associating said first code and said second code with said commodity;
• receiving said content in a way which indicates that said commodity was actually produced at a time of receiving, and obtaining said first and second codes therefrom;
• and,
• determining from said first and second codes received by said receiving whether the content matches the second code and validating the first code only if so.

A method of automatically billing for advertising, comprising:

• marking an advertisement with a code during production of said advertisement, said code indicating some aspect of the advertisement that is associated with billing;
• processing said advertisement in a way which prevents a user from detecting codes on only advertisements and not on other program content, in order to prevent the user from automatically detecting presence of an advertisement;
• and
• obtaining billing information from said code on said advertisement when said advertisement is actually transmitted.