System and method for awarding prizes
AssigneeSony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
InventorsNizar Allibhoy, Nicholas Cross Wodtke
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Abstract
A system and method for awarding prizes in a contest consisting of multiple sub-contests in which prizes are awarded to contestants based on the contestants' relative skill, even where some of the sub-contests may be known to some of the contestants in advance of the contest. Points are awarded to contestants for correct responses to the sub-contests. Contestants are ranked by the number of points they were awarded. The number of points awarded in the various sub-contests, or the weighting, causes the ranking to approximately correlate to the contestants' performance on a particular sub-set of the sub-contests. Sub-grouping of contestants and multi-tiered prizing structures are also employed.
Claims34
A method for awarding prizes to contestants in a contest that includes a plurality of sub-contests comprising:
- awarding points to contestants based in part on each respective contestant's correct responses to a first set of sub-contests, the first set of sub-contests being a pre-recorded broadcast;
- awarding points to contestants based in part on each respective contestant's correct responses to a second set of sub-contests, the second set of sub-contests being a real-time broadcast;
- creating a ranking of the contestants based on points awarded to each respective contestant from highest number of points awarded to lowest number of points awarded;
- weighting the number of points awarded for each sub-contest so that the ranking approximately correlates to the contestants' performance on the second set of sub-contests;
- and
- awarding at least one prize to a contestant based at least in part on the ranking.
A system for awarding prizes to contestants in an interactive television game show comprising:
- a storage medium that stores a pre-recorded game show having pre-recorded puzzles;
- a storage medium that stores a pool of bonus puzzles;
- an integrating device that integrates at least a portion of the pool of bonus puzzles with the pre-recorded game show to create a combined signal;
- a transmitting device that transmits the bonus puzzles in real-time along with the ore-recorded game show;
- a plurality of engines that receive the combined signal and present different bonus puzzles in real time to different contestants along with the pre-recorded puzzles;
- and
- a response network that receives communications from contestants that are associated with the pre-recorded puzzles and the bonus puzzles and awards points to contestants for correct responses to the pre-recorded puzzles and the bonus puzzles wherein the number of points awarded for the correct responses is weighted to sufficiently insure that a ranking of contestants based on a number of points awarded substantially correlates with a relative performance of the contestants on the bonus puzzles, and wherein the response network determines a contestants to be a prize winner based at least in part on the ranking.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.