Method and apparatus for accessing electronic data via a familiar printed medium
AssigneeMarshall Feature Recognition, LLC
InventorsSpencer A. Rathus, Jeffrey S. Nevid
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The disclosed methods and apparatus relate generally to the electronics media industry, such as cable television (CATV), home shopping services, on-line computer services and computer memory applications. These methods and apparatus allow a user to access and make use of electronic media input and output devices by reference to and/or utilization of standard printed matter, such as magazines, textbooks, or any other printed matter that can be correlated to electronic media.
Claims25
A method for displaying selected programming material to a user using at least one machine recognizable feature within a printed matter and a database comprising programming material associated with the at least one machine recognizable feature, comprising the steps of:
- recognizing the at least one machine recognizable feature of the printed matter using a feature recognizing device coupled to a user device, wherein the at least one machine recognizable feature has a plurality of portions of encoded data, and further wherein at least one portion of the plurality of portions comprises a preprogrammed command for executing an interaction with the user device;
- identifying encoded data associated with the at least one machine recognizable feature of the printed matter;
- presenting a plurality of options on a display;
- selecting at least one of the plurality of options;
- transmitting, using the user device, data associated with the at least one machine recognizable feature and the at least one option selected to the database;
- receiving the selected programming material from the database;
- and
- displaying the programming material on the display.
A system for displaying programming material to a user, the system comprising:
- a printed matter having a machine recognizable feature, wherein said machine recognizable feature has a plurality of portions of encoded data, and further wherein at least one portion of the plurality of portions comprises a preprogrammed command for executing an interaction with a user device;
- the user device including:
- a feature recognition device configured to recognize said machine recognizable feature,
- a display configured to present a plurality of options upon recognizing said machine recognizable feature, and
- a transmitter configured to transmit a coded signal upon recognition of said machine recognizable feature and selection of at least one option from said plurality of options;
- and
- an intelligent controller configured to access said programming material in response to receiving said coded signal and cause said programming material to be displayed on said display.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.